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This battle, to simply win the right to create an unbiased space between US/Cuba policy for ordinary people to become reacquainted, may have to be fought within each of our communities and home towns. There is a tremendous desire by people nationwide, to be able to get a better grasp and firsthand understanding about Cuba. The Cuban American community are not the only people affected by US/Cuba policy; our whole nation suffers its consequences. We must help each other, to clearly demonstrate the overwhelming majority of Americans who wish to rise above the rhetoric of hatred, and begin to explore mutually constructive people-to-people exchanges. Even though we honor that many people suffer great personal tragedies in all civil wars and familial divisions, the response cannot be the complete severing of bilateral relations.

Cutting off fact finding and conscience raising measures ultimately means suppressing our most basic freedoms of association, speech, assembly and travel. Democracy requires citizens be informed; that cannot occur in the vacuum minus diverse perspectives. Please write letters of support for the St. Augustine sister city to the editor at the Miami Herald and especially to: 

Honorable, Len Weeks Mayor St. Augustine 
Box 210 St. Augustine, Florida, 32085 

Lastly, start a sister city committee within your own community if you have not done so already. Our unity of strategy will be our success.

Proposed tie to Cuba stirs rage
St. Augustine wants to be sister city with port town
BY MARIKA LYNCH
Published Monday, September 11, 2000, in the Miami Herald

Oakland did it. Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, did it, too. Now a group wants St. Augustine to be the next of a growing number of U.S. towns to create sister city relationships in Cuba. 

The North Florida city has chosen the island's eastern village of Baracoa. Organizers believe it's an ideal fit: Both St. Augustine and the port town are the longest continuously inhabited settlements in their countries. Both came into existence to protect the Spanish fleet, boast centuries-old forts and have renowned chocolate factories.

But the thought of any formal relationship with Castro's Cuba is sending shock waves through many in the city's small, usually dormant, Cuban-American community. It may seem like a fine idea in Madison, Wis., Mobile, Ala., and the five other American cities that have established ties -- but this is Florida, says Dr. Ernest Carames, who is leading a petition drive to stop the movement.

``We have people daily throwing themselves into the Straits of Florida from that prison camp,'' said Carames, a St. Augustine internist. ``My grandfather fought for Cuba along with American units in the war for independence. My father suffered and shed his blood in Cuba's prisons. My uncles shed their blood in Cuba's prisons. I cannot live in peace knowing we are the first city in Florida to develop a relationship with a communist regime.''

Carames said he has never been involved in exile causes -- St. Augustine doesn't have any Cuban-American civic groups and the doctor has stayed away from Miami, he said, precisely to avoid exile politics. 

But he has collected 90 signatures in the last week, he said, because his Miami Beach father would ``have a stroke'' if he knew about the proposal. 

The controversy has disturbed St. Augustine Mayor Len Weeks, who helped spearhead the sister city effort by attending a conference in Havana this spring. Now, he finds himself in hourlong debates about Cuba-U.S. relations, receiving a deluge of e-mails for and against the project -- 30 on Friday alone. 

Though he once thought the sister city relationship had overwhelming support and was a sure bet, he has now planned to raise the issue at a St. Augustine commission meeting today to air comments. 

``I am very sorry this issue has somehow divided us. This has been a learning experience for all of us,'' Weeks said. ``We're not used to this kind of controversy surrounding something like this. This shouldn't have been a controversial issue. It's touching on some very deep wounds.'' 

BOOMING INTEREST

U.S.-Cuba sister city relationships have been booming over the last decade -- and have accelerated since the Clinton administration relaxed travel restrictions and began promoting people-to-people contact. 

The first to participate were Mobile and Havana, which have an odd historical connection: The French soldier who founded the Alabama city died of yellow fever and was buried in the Cuban capital. 

The concept spread -- now six cities besides St. Augustine are striving for a connection -- and competition has grown. Oakland and Philadelphia sparred over Santiago, Cuba's second largest city. Oakland won, but only after Mayor Jerry Brown flew to the island to make a personal pitch. Philadelphia settled for Cardenas, hometown of Elian Gonzalez. 

In fact, it was the plight of the 6-year-old boy that helped spur interest in the program, said Ricardo Gonzalez, a Cuban American who started a relationship between his adopted hometown of Madison and Camaguey, Cuba, the city of his ancestors. 

``All of the sudden, and particularly in the past year, Cuba has been front and center before the American people. Even before the Elian Gonzalez thing, there was the cigar craze, the success of Cuban music,'' Gonzalez said. 

``It has been an awakening and, Americans, their mouths are watering with Cuba, if you will.'' 

The U.S.-Cuba connections are run by a nonprofit group that is separate from Sister Cities International, which was founded to curb the spread of communism and doesn't recognize connections with countries that don't have relations with the United States. 

The St. Augustine effort was started by a group of residents who gathered to discuss Caribbean culture. Their interest in Cuba grew after watching the documentary Buena Vista Social Club and listening to a Jose Marti scholar.

SHARED HISTORY

The city's history is intertwined with Cuba's. Groups of exiles flock there annually to visit the first grave of Father Felix Varela, the 19th Century priest who labored to free his homeland from Spanish rule. (Varela's remains were removed to Havana in the early 1900s.) While at the May U.S.- Cuba sister cities conference in Havana, three of the group's members traveled to Baracoa. At the conference, group member Dr. Ron Dixon met with 27 dentists. He realized a relationship could help the dentists get surgical gloves without holes, drill bits and a new machine to make crowns and bridges.

The group also wants to help preserve Baracoa's archives and records, hich they hope will shed light on Florida's own history. 

There is a fundamental lack of understanding between Cuban and American people because of travel restrictions, Dixon said. The program could help alter that and ultimately bring change to Cuba, he said. 

``I'm of the personal belief that after 41 years of revolution and 38 years of the embargo, change hasn't come from the top down. Perhaps the bottom up is the answer,'' he said. ``Grass-roots change.'' 

ABOUT FRIENDSHIPS

Even though the relationship is formed between governments -- in this case the St. Augustine commission and the municipal assembly in Baracoa -- supporters say the effort is really about friendships between people. 

But those in St. Augustine who disagree with establishing a sister city in Cuba believe anyone who wants to help the Cuban people can send aid through other established routes like church groups -- not by forming a relationship between two municipalities. 

The Cuban-American community is small, an estimated 200 out of a city of 12,000, said Paul Fagundo, a St. Augustine Cuban American who volunteers to care for Varela's grave. But he has contacted the Miami-based Cuban

National Heritage association for help, and says many in his community vow to fight it, he said.

``It's devastating to anybody who believes in democracy and freedom and liberty,'' he said.