By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
St. Petersburg Times - May 9, 2001

ST. PETERSBURG -- More than two dozen Tampa Bay area residents crowded into a Lakewood Terrace home Monday eager to talk with the bishop of Cuba's Roman Catholic Diocese of Guantanamo about establishing a relationship with people who live in his province.

His visit to the United States, said Bishop Carlos Baladron, who earlier had a meeting with Bishop Robert N. Lynch of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, was a mission of friendship.

For that reason, the lively gathering in Lakewood Terrace held significance for both the bishop and the group that hosted the evening's reception.

Organized by the fledgling St. Petersburg-Cuba Sister Cities Project, a small group that has no ties to City Hall, Monday's event gave the bishop an opportunity to talk about Guantanamo, an eastern province in his Caribbean homeland. For his hosts, it

gave them a chance to discuss ways to build non-political, non-sectarian relationships with residents in the rural province.

The church has a key role to play in nurturing such relationships, Baladron said.

"Historically, the Catholic church in the United States and the Catholic church in Cuba always enjoyed a very good relationship, and the church now is to be a bridge with the people. And this needs to be over any political, social situation," said Baladron, speaking through his friend and interpreter, the Rev. Ramon Hernandez of St. Rita's Catholic Church in Dade City.

"When the pope went to Cuba in 1998, he told Cubans to be open to the world and that the world needs to be open to Cubans. And that is the best message from the church," added Baladron, who was bishop of Havana for six years.

Stephanie Green, president of the St. Petersburg-Cuba Sister Cities Project, which has about 10 members and is affiliated with the US-Cuba Sister Cities Association, said she found Baladron's visit enlightening.

"One thing I learned from it is, it's good to have that people-to-people contact. It's just like he was saying, you just don't drop off a package and run," said Green, referring to the bishop's response to offers to send medical supplies and other assistance to Cuba.

"It's not about charity. It's about friendship," Green said.

"It's easy to put your value system on someone else. We can say the people of Guantanamo need this or that. Hearing from somebody in that area is important. We need contact. We need to listen. We need to be understanding. We need to be respectful."

Al Arteaga of Tampa agreed. Arteaga, who is on the board of the St. Petersburg group, also is a member of Cuba Vive, an organization that works to pressure the U.S. government to lift the embargo against the communist nation.

During Monday's gathering, Arteaga asked Baladron to talk about the embargo's effect on Cuba.

"The Catholic church has always been against all embargoes," said the bishop, who steered clear of political statements.

Besides representatives from Cuba Vive, members of Pastors for Peace also helped boost the tiny contingent that makes up the St. Petersburg-Cuba Sister Cities Project. Pat Buchanan, a representative of Sister Cities International, an unrelated and considerably older organization that got its start shortly after World War II under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, traveled from Lakeland for Monday's gathering.

Those who attended learned that Guantanamo has about 200,000 residents. The predominantly rural and agricultural region is where French immigrants fled after Haiti's slave rebellion in the late 18th century. It also is where Jamaicans and other English-speaking Caribbean transplants settled.

Guantanamo is a poor province, Baladron told his audience. It has one hospital "in a very sorry state," a children's hospital and a home for the aged, he said, adding that it shares many of the same problems as other areas of Cuba. However, he joked, because Guantanamo is so far from Havana, the island's capital, both the good and bad take a long time to arrive in the province.

The U.S. naval station on Guantanamo Bay is nearby. No relationship exists between the base and the Cuban province, said Baladron, except for the 30 Cuban workers who are employed by the U.S. military.

Like Baladron, Green determinedly quieted talk about U.S.-Cuba relations.

"This is not about politics. It's about people," she said.

During an earlier interview about her group, she said, "We're not hoping to have a sway on Cuban politics."

For his part, Baladron expressed gratitude to those who turned out to welcome him to St. Petersburg.

"It's a very generous act on your part, what you're trying to do," he said.

"We need to live together. We need to train our hearts to be more universal. Everybody needs to be one."

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Jacksonville Times-Union - Wednesday, May 9, 2001

Our congratulations to St. Petersburg Sister City Association for working with the St. Augustine sister city group to make the visit of the Cuban Bishop so healing and fruitful for the people of Florida. Hopefully, people will respond to his spiritual message and even Florida will join the rest of the nation in opening its heart to Cuba.

Sincerely,

Lisa Valanti
President
US-CUBA Sister Cities Association, Inc.