MASFERRER
& CUBAN CONSUL HIDALGO - CLASH
July 1959
[Reference:
OCB Dade County, Florida file #31324-B. Miami News 9
July 59]
NO BATTLEFIELD
Our Town Off Limits To
Cubans?
By HAINES COLBERT
Mayor Robert King High said today he was considering an
appeal to
federal authorities to put Miami off limits for some Cuban
political
refugees.
The mayor broached his plan after Cuban Consul Alonso
Hidalgo, beaten
in a near riot Saturday night, was whisked out of a hospital
here and
back to Havana.
NO BATTLEGROUND
Hidalgo, 32, was to have been tried in city court tomorrow
for inciting the disturbance.
"I don't think the Cubans should expect us to permit Miami
to be used
for a battleground," said High. "It is grossly unfair
to our
people.
"At the same time, it is only human nature for some of the
Cubans, when
they see enemies who have done them and their families great
harm, to
take physical action.
"I think the only answer is to keep them apart."
High said the government night hold hearings in another part
of the country for Cubans coming here to seek political
refuge.
"Federal Judge (Emett) Choate has ruled that persons seeking
asylum
here are entitled to a hearing," the mayor said. "But
he didn't
say the hearing has to be in Miami.
POLICE CRACKDOWN
"It seems to me such persons could be sent to some part of
the country
where there isn't the explosive situation which exists in
Miami.
And I believe they could be required to stay in the place
where the
hearings were to be held."
Police Chief Walter E. Headley Jr. and Sheriff Thomas J.
Kelly both
promised a crackdown on warring Cubans here. But high
said he
doubted if that would be any solution. "You can't
crack down on
them until they do something," he said. "And then it's
too late."
High told of a Cuban here who was tortured and kept in a
semiconscious condition in jail for 27 days during the
Batista regime.
The Cuban, he said, recently spotted on a Miami street
corner the former Army lieutenant who presided over his
torment.
"Things like that are happening here all the time," he
said.
"There are Cubans in Miami who just explode - and quite
naturally - at
the sight of some of their old enemies.
"We must keep them apart somehow."
CASTROMEN ANGRY
Cuban supporters of Fidel Castro's government, meanwhile,
were aroused over the battle in which Hidalgo was hurt.
"If this had happened to one of your officials in another
country,"
Havana Mayor Jose Llanusa declared, "you would send the
Marines."
Llanusa, who came her on a friendship mission to help
Miamians celebrate the fourth of July, returned to Havana
last night.
HOW ABOUT NIXON?
In parting, he said: "How did you feel when your Vice
President Nixon
was beaten and spit on in Venezuela? Well, we feel the
same way
in Havana about this case." But chief Headley, in a
15-page
report to City Manager Ira Willard, blamed Hidalgo for most
of the
trouble. Headley said police had control of an outbreak
involving Cuban
factions in front of the home of former Cuban Sen. Rolando
Masferrer
when Hidalgo arrived in a car.
The consul, said Headley, rallied supporters of the present
regime to
attack the friends of Masferrer, who is considered Castro's
No. 1 enemy.
In the fighting around Masferrer's home at 1105 SW 2nd Ave.,
Hidalgo
received a head injury. He was taken to Doctors
Hospital, and was
charged with creating the disturbance.
NEAR DEATH
There were conflicting reports about the seriousness of
Hidalgo's
condition, but High said the Cuban official at one point was
near
death. "I was informed they almost opened his chest to be
ready to
massage his heart if it stopped," High said. "He was revived
without
surgery. But he is in serious condition, and I am sure
he would
not have been able to appear in court tomorrow." Hidalgo was
taken from
the hospital by Cuban officials, who put him on a military
plane for
the flight back to Havana.
RELATIONS HURT
Rafael Valdez, 20-years-old official of the Cuban Tourist
Commission
who also faces trial tomorrow as an instigator of the fight,
remained
here.
In Havana, Nicholas Rivero, press secretary for the ministry
of State,
described the Miami incident as "barbarous," and said the
melee
apparently had the approval of Miami police.
Rivero charged that the attack was planned and directed by
Julio
Lauren, former chief of naval intelligence in the Batista
dictatorship. Lauren is in exile in Miami.
The battle put Havana-Miami relations back where they were
before Castro seized the Cuban government Jan. 1.
Justo Luis Pozo, mayor of Havana under Batista, charged last
year that
Miami was unsafe for law-abiding Cubans because of the
presence here of
Batista's enemies.
ROBERT KING HIGH
Cubans Are Troublesome.
End of Page
Copyright
1998-2014 Cuban Information Archives. All Rights
Reserved.
