Dissident Ignored in Cuba, Threatened with Jail in U.S.

HAVANA, Cuba — Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo insists he is not a man without a country, but Cuba barely tolerates his presence and the United States has threatened to jail him should he return to Miami.

"My story is unique," said the rail-thin self-proclaimed revolutionary, now a graying 72. "I love my country, but I am like the ham between the pieces of bread in a sandwich. I'm in between the extremists on the left and the right."

For all the passion surrounding Cuba's history of the past five decades, Menoyo's story is one of the most unusual.

Born in Spain, he came to Cuba as a child. As a young man, he joined Fidel Castro's band of rebels intent on overthrowing the corrupt regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. His brother was killed in the Cuban Revolution, fighting for Castro's forces, while Menoyo was involved in several important military operations that resulted in Batista's defeat.

But he soon had a falling-out with Castro.

"We fought against a dictator and at first I was 100 percent in agreement with Fidel," Menoyo said. "He said this was a nationalist revolution, a revolution as Cuban as palm trees. But as he set up his government, there was no talk of anything but one party. I said I fought for liberty and democracy and I wouldn't accept only one party."

Menoyo left Cuba for Miami, where he became active with the fervent anti-Castro groups that were forming, some training for commando-style military operations.

He returned to Cuba in the early 1960s and claims to have led several raids against Cuban installations. He was soon captured, however, and sent to prison, where he languished for 22 years.

"I paid a high price," he said, drawing on a cigarette. "They broke my ribs. I lost the vision in one eye and my hearing in one ear."

Released in 1986, Menoyo eventually landed back in Miami, where he formed a Cuban opposition group he named Cuban Change. Mellowed by his years in captivity, he no longer called for a violent overthrow of Castro's regime, instead advocating a peaceful dialogue.

In 2003, he visited Cuba again, announcing that he would stay in Havana and attempt to form an opposition group. The Cuban government has tolerated his presence, although it has never given him formal legal status to remain on the island.

He was even invited by the government to attend a conference on migration, but has not obtained permission to open an office for his opposition group.

While Cuba allowed him to stay and has not arrested him, Menoyo has not fared as well with the American government.

In 2004, the U.S. Treasury Department, which enforces the decades-old embargo against Cuba, sent Menoyo a letter warning that he could face prosecution for violating U.S. restrictions on travel to Cuba should he return to America. The agency also froze the bank account of Cuban Change in Miami.

Menoyo simply shakes his head over the situation. He faces $250,000 in fines and up to 10 years in prison if he returns to America and is convicted of the charges.

"I'm fighting and working for democracy and liberation in Cuba, and that has turned me into a criminal in the U.S.," he said.

In the emotional world of Cuban and Cuban exile politics, Menoyo is now isolated. His dreams of leading a peaceful opposition have come to little in Cuba. Cuban exile groups reject his approach and anti-Castro dissidents on the island also dismiss him, mistrustful of his confusing personal history.

Still, some Cuba watchers say Menoyo has accomplished one fairly remarkable feat.

"He's the only person who has left Miami to go back to Cuba to engage in the civic opposition," said Philip Peters, a Cuba expert at the Lexington Institute, a Washington D.C.-based think tank.

With Castro now 80 and out of the public eye for most of the past year due to a serious illness, Menoyo is reluctant to predict what the future holds for Cuba.

He opposes the U.S. embargo, saying a "good neighbor" policy would be far more effective at pressuring the Cuban government to change. He believes the Bush administration's moves to tighten the embargo and its hostile rhetoric against Cuba are counter-productive.

But he has little faith in the Cuban government.

"Sovereignty is never centered in one man," he said. "Cuba is stuck in a vicious circle. The state steals the labor of the workers by paying them starvation wages. The workers steal from the state in the factories and shops. Fidel wants to stop the corruption but he cannot. Worst of all, the youth here see no future."

Despite his situation, Menoyo still hopes to return someday to the United States, but has no immediate plans to do so. He seems resigned to living out his days in Havana, floating in the midst of the angry rhetoric that so often surrounds the debate over the island's future.

"I'm not a man without a country," he said. "I love my country. But I'm in limbo. I really wanted the best for Cuba, but there is no space for an independent opposition."