Time Mellows Some Cuba Politics in U.S. : Miami: Militant Cuban exiles insist that there should be no relations with Cuba, but increasing numbers believe there should be some contact between the two nations.

MIAMI —  For many years, Cuban exiles here have seized on almost any opportunity to reinforce their hard line toward Fidel Castro’s Cuba.

Sports and cultural events, artists and academicians all have been embroiled at times in controversy about attitudes toward Cuba. Some of the disputes have sparked threats, public protests and violence.

While anti-Communist fervor among the exiles has not abated, there are signs that the viewpoint of the Cuban community here is more complex today than it was 30 years ago, just after the revolution.

The militants say there should be no relations whatever with Cuba, nor any overture made by the United States. Others, in increasing numbers, believe there should be some contact between the two nations.

Just 10 years ago, which side one was on could hold dire consequences. Bombings and bomb threats were not uncommon in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.

Such tactics now are rare.

“There are strong business elements that would be damaged by a fanatic, destructive environment,” Maria Cristina Herrera, a professor of social science at Miami Dade Community College and executive director of a Cuban studies institute, said.

That is why some Cuban-American leaders were concerned when the recent Calle Ocho Festival became embroiled in politics and the organizer, the Kiwanis Club of Little Havana, banned three entertainers because they had performed in Cuba.

At a news conference in March, the popular Brazilian singer Denise de Kalafe, one of those banned, was grilled by Cuban exile reporters about her appearance at Cuba’s Varadero music festival in 1979: Had she posed with Fidel Castro for a photograph? (No.) Had she praised him in an interview on Havana radio? (No.) Had she planned to record an album with a well-known singer in Cuba? (No.)

Some exile leaders later denounced the “frenzy” and urged that the Kiwanis Club reconsider its policy.

“This is not an isolated community in Iowa,” Jaime Suchlicki, director of the University of Miami’s Institute of Inter-American Studies, said. “There continues to be a connection with the island and the arrival of people that feeds into this kind of activity. “You have to understand how the Cubans feel about those collaborating with the Cuban regime.”

Xavier Suarez, Miami’s Cuban-born mayor, said: “The position the Kiwanis have taken is really hurting them and the city. It is a very extreme position for them to take--one I don’t think too many people agree with, even in the Cuban community.”

But some did agree with the festival organizers. Erelio Pena, former president of the Hispanic American Builders Assn., said: “They are not hurting Miami’s image. They are giving a lesson in civic and moral duty. The singers who go to Cuba should be punished for this.”

Another issue here has been art sold at auction by the Cuban Museum of Art and Culture, which has included some works of postrevolutionary Cubans. Anti-Castro activists planted a pipe bomb that exploded at the museum’s doors in April, 1988.

Recently, works of art belonging to the museum vice president, Ramon Cernuda, were seized by federal marshals investigating whether the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba had been violated.

Cernuda accused the Cuban American National Foundation, an anti-Castro lobby in Washington, of orchestrating the incident. He called it “a political vendetta, a return to the epoch of McCarthy.”

There was more controversy recently over a Cuban studies institute to be set up at Florida International University. The state was to provide seed money, but the Cuban American National Foundation would match those funds with private contributions and, in effect, control the institute’s board.

“It was basically an independent entity which didn’t respond to the university,” Lisandro Perez, chairman of the university’s committee on Cuban studies, said.

Critics of the plan said the institute would be forced by its backers to push a conservative agenda, and the swift response helped kill the project when state lawmakers withdrew the request for funds.

Judge Mas Canosa, chairman of the influential group of exiles here, says the foundation has a strong background in research. He told Spanish-language radio there was a need to counter the “leftist liberals” currently doing Cuban research at the university.

In May, 1988, after she had organized a forum on the future of U.S.-Cuba relations, an explosion rocked the home of Herrera, the university professor, and damaged a car parked in her driveway.

Herrera said the timing of the bombing, apparently meant to intimidate rather than to injure her, was important.

“The message was not only sent to us, but the U.S. government” she said. It was one of disillusionment with events at the close of the Ronald Reagan Administration.

The United States and Cuba reached agreement late last year on immigration-related issues, a development that suggested improvement in relations.

Tomas Garcia Fuste, executive director of Spanish-language WQBA, said Castro has often used exile demonstrations and anti-Castro rhetoric to turn public opinion in Cuba against those who fled to this country.

That is why exiles are becoming more careful about what they say and do, he added.

“Castro and Castro’s friends in the U.S. use our reactions against us (to say) that we want revolution, to plant bombs and do other things,” Garcia said.

Alpha 66, a militant anti-Castro group in Miami, also recognizes that. Its leaders say the group has abandoned the violence it advocated in the past.

“At this point, we understand the world situation is not in favor of our line of fighting years ago,” said Alberto Gonzalez of Alpha 66. “The world situation has changed completely, to more of the fight for human rights and peaceful maneuvers to force the dictatorships to understand that things have to change. . . . If we go against the grain, we’ll be branded terrorists, which we are not.”

Instead of bombs and guns, Alpha 66 now concentrates on weapons such as broadcasts to Cuba that urge civil disobedience.

Garcia cited the recent visit of the first Cuban athletic team to South Florida since pre-Castro days as further evidence that Cubans here want to be seen in a different light. A large contingent of Cuban protesters had been expected to disrupt the junior weightlifting championships in Ft. Lauderdale, but only a couple of minor confrontations were reported.

“We are against Castro, but not against the weightlifters,” Garcia said. “Communism is all that these kids know. They now have the opportunity to see how we live in the United States. We cannot get the freedom of Cuba without the people inside Cuba.”

Something else that would have been almost unthinkable a decade or so ago was an exile organization that openly favored relations between the United States and Cuba. The slogan of the new Cuban-American Coalition is “Reconciliation, Communication and Tolerance.”

Herrera attributes this mellowing to the younger generation of Cuban-Americans.

“They are educated here, and though they continue to be very Cuban they have been shaped by American values of pluralism, diversity and fair play,” she said.

And while there is still intimidation, she added, more and more people are daring to speak out against the militants.

A little over a decade ago, retribution was swift.

Emilio Milian, director at a Spanish-language radio station, spoke out against those who resorted to violence. A bomb planted in his car blew off both his legs below the knees.

Milian, a hard-liner himself, survived and kept on broadcasting. Exile Miami, he says, has changed considerably in the 13 years since that attempt on his life.

On July 5, he went on the air with a new, independent station that he says will be “like an open window for all in this community,” regardless of their feelings about Cuba.