Exiles captured in Cuba during armed infiltrations cannot return to the U.S.

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Branded as a terrorist by both the Cuban and U.S. governments, Tomas Ramos says he is essentially a non-person in Havana — no job and no identification papers, but lots of harassment by State Security agents.

“We are always persecuted,” said Ramos, 70, one of several former South Florida men freed after serving long sentences in Cuban prisons for armed raids against the island in the 1990s — but prohibited from returning to the United States.

Cuban authorities monitor them tightly and with deep suspicion. And the U.S. State Department has denied them visas and political asylum, they say, because of their past involvement in political violence.

“We are watched all the time, even in our private lives. Our lives in Cuba are worth nothing. They can kill us anytime,” Ramos said. “And nevertheless, the U.S. does not allow us to go there because they say that we are violent.”

All told, 21 raiders from South Florida are known to have been captured on the island from 1991 to 1996, when some exiles believed Cuba was vulnerable to an anti-Castro revolt during the devastating crisis after the Soviet Union’s collapse.

At least 16 are still in Cuba, including eight in prison and seven released after completing long terms, according to several former prisoners and supporters in Havana and Miami interviewed by el Nuevo Herald. One other died in Cuba from natural causes. Two were allowed to return to Florida because they were U.S. citizens.

Some have acknowledged that they infiltrated Cuba with weapons and plans to attack or sabotage government targets. Others claim they went to the island only to deliver supplies or information to others already there.

Their stories were highlighted last week when Havana announced the arrests in April of four Cuban men from Miami who were allegedly plotting to attack military installations on the island on orders from three exile activists still in South Florida.

On Saturday, the U.S. Interests Section issued a statement confirming a May 8 meeting with representatives of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the arrests. It said, “The Cubans provided some information about the allegations which we are now reviewing.”

Cuba’s Interior Ministry has identified the men as Jose Ortega Amador, Obdulio Rodriguez Gonzalez, Raibel Pacheco Santos and Felix Monzon Alvarez. It said they were detained in late April for planning “terrorist actions” masterminded from Florida.

Egberto Angel Escobedo Morales, whose Association of Current and Former Political Prisoners in Havana tries to help the raiders, said their conditions both in prison and after their releases are almost unimaginably horrible.

The raiders are usually sent to the worst prisons, where guards treat them with special brutality, beating them and putting them in isolation cells, said Escobedo, a Havana man who served 15

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You gotta love those Battista worshiping folk!