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Cuba Orioles 1999 Baseball Game Protest

By CAROL ROSENBERG - Friday, April 30, 1999, in the Miami Herald
"Orioles-Cuba game seeks to limit voice of protesters"

Miami's Ruth ``Chuny'' Montaner is searching for five seats in a row for next week's baseball game between Cuba and the Orioles in Baltimore.

She wants one for herself and one each for color photographs of Felix Bonne, Rene Gomez Manzano, Vladimiro Roca and Marta Beatriz Roque -- human rights activists now in prison in Cuba for writing a pro-democracy leaflet, The Homeland Belongs to Us All.

On Wednesday, the ballpark would sell her only two together -- way out in left field -- under limits designed to stymie significant protest inside Camden Yards at Monday's game.

Cuban and U.S. ball players may be planning nine innings of the Great American Pastime. But anti-Castro activists are already engaged in a different sport: They are trying to transform the game into a platform for political protest -- both against Fidel Castro and the U.S. policy of people-to-people contacts that is bringing the game to Baltimore.

So Montaner's latest plan is to wear a T-shirt to the game declaring ``Free the Cuba Four'' and to occupy one seat. In the single empty seat beside her, she plans to post pictures of all four jailed dissidents.

``I don't know whether they have a dress code,'' she said, somewhat bewildered. But, ``I'm going to sit with my pictures. I gave them my 40 dollars.''

Two busloads of mostly elderly exiles leave from Miami on Sunday night. The trip is free, thanks to a $7,000 contribution from an anonymous South Floridian, said Arthur Estopinan, aide to Florida's Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. The Miami contingent plans to link up with a 15- to 20-bus caravan from New Jersey being organized by the Cuban American National Foundation.

But CANF regional director Remberto Perez said protest organizers were refused their request, brokered by New Jersey Democratic Rep. Robert Menendez, to buy a 500-seat block inside the stadium -- then were told Tuesday that anyone who unfurls posters or flags will be warned once and ejected the second time.

Now anti-Castro activists are debating whether to protest only outside the stadium -- or to also sit inside, in pairs, for smaller private protests like Montaner's.

Also, the Orioles are seeking a ban on air traffic over the downtown Baltimore stadium -- to ground planes hired to tow such slogans as We Are One People Divided by One Man and Beisbol sí, tiranía no, Yes to baseball, no to tyranny.

Activists so far have contracted for seven planes from Baltimore businesses at between $500 and $700 a pop. But whether they fly, Perez said, will depend upon whether air traffic controllers at Baltimore-Washington International Airport clear them for takeoff.

Protests organized

Police have authorized pro- and anti-demonstrations outside the downtown Baltimore sporting venue. South Floridians plan to start the protest by laying flowers at a statue of Jose Marti in downtown Baltimore -- then move on to the stadium.

But most upsetting to activists is the threat to either eject or arrest Cuban-American protesters who stage trademark anti-Castro political theater in the stands -- by waving flags and banners or wearing costumes.

``Seeing Cubans arrested in that stadium will break the hearts of the dissident groups in Cuba,'' the foundation's Perez warned.

Added Montaner, a Miami human rights activist who says she does not oppose people-to-people contacts: ``We should be careful not to send the wrong message to the people who are struggling for democracy on that island. We are in the U.S.A., and we want to export democracy to Cuba.''

But, by stifling protest, she said, the Orioles ``are following the rules that Castro has in Cuba.''

Baltimore Police spokesman Rob Weinhold said Orioles ushers have the power to ask unruly or disruptive spectators to leave Camden Yards and that police officers would be on hand to assist if people refuse.

Police discretion

But, he said Wednesday, ``it should be noted that Baltimore Police officers will be using a large degree of discretion as regards to the event itself. The goal is for the players, fans and visitors to enjoy the game, and the department is there in a public safety capacity.''

In all, anti-Castro activists predict 1,000 demonstrators will show up in Baltimore, given the on-again, off-again nature of the game and the inconvenient Monday-evening play date. Ramon Saul Sanchez's Democracy Movement was arranging Wednesday to hire a tractor-trailer to tow a message board around downtown Baltimore.

A focus of Sanchez's protest will be the controls that Cuba put on the first Cuba-Orioles game in Havana, March 28, when only people chosen by the Cuban Communist Party were allowed in the stands. The message board says, in part: Orioles: Play for the Cuban People, not Its Dictator.

Besides the two buses leaving from Little Havana on Sunday, more than a dozen South Floridians were also planning to travel to the game by plane -- either to protest outside or slip into the stands.

Members of the organization Pastors for Peace, which opposes the U.S. embargo against Cuba, also are planning to attend the game.

1-800-BEISBOL Enero 20, 2005 05:20 PM