Group also may be challenged on name

 BY ELAINE DE VALLE

 Ninoska Pérez Castellón said Sunday she quit the Cuban American National Foundation after 15 years because the organization no longer reflects her principles.

 ``I couldn't be part of something I don't agree with,'' she said in her first interview with The Herald since her resignation Thursday. She declined to offer further details because she wants listeners to her WQBA 1140 AM program, Ninoska a la Una, to hear her side directly from her.

 The Miami radio talk show host said she will explain today on her show, which begins at 1 p.m., her abrupt exit last week from the influential anti-Castro lobby.

 In another development, a man who recently registered the CANF name said he will challenge the organization's right to use the title.

 The juxtaposition of the events -- the high profile exit and the name dispute -- has prompted some exiles to speculate that the foundation is foundering -- something its leaders vehemently deny.

 Pérez Castellón said she has been overwhelmed by the show of support from the community since Thursday, when she left the organization where she once served as spokeswoman. She also was on the board of directors and directed La Voz de la Fundación -- The Voice of the Foundation -- the organization's shortwave radio service beamed at Cuba.

 ``This has been one of the saddest and most difficult times of my life,'' Pérez Castellón said. She was surrounded by paintings, boxes and mementos in the living room of the Doral home she shares with her husband, Roberto Martín Pérez, a 28-year political prisoner in Cuba who also resigned from the foundation.

 The departures, on the eve of the foundation's annual congress in Puerto Rico this past weekend, punctuated dissent within the powerful organization over the direction taken by chairman Jorge Más Santos, who took over after his father, founder Jorge Más Canosa, died in 1997.

 At issue is what critics call ``unilateral'' decisions by Más Santos to increase bipartisan outreach, support ``independent businesses'' in Cuba -- which some veteran
 activists say will benefit the Castro regime -- and lobby to bring the Latin Grammy Awards to Miami.

 ``Now we have to show tolerance towards the government of Fidel Castro,'' said one director who did not attend the weekend summit, which ended Sunday. ``That is not what the foundation is about. Our concern is the freedom of Cuba.''

 The Grammy issue was seen as the last straw, said former member Mario Miranda, who was Más Canosa's bodyguard and helped to care for him until he died.

 ``It is like a bucket has been filling with water and this last drop caused it to overflow,'' said Miranda, who recently registered with the state an organization called the
 Cuban American National Foundation -- and named himself president. He acted after discovering that the group allowed ownership of the name to lapse two years ago when Más Santos created a satellite nonprofit called the Jorge Más Canosa Freedom Foundation.

 Miranda said Sunday that his attorney would send a letter today telling Más Santos to stop using the Cuban American National Foundation name, which he said he had ``rescued.''

 ``It is a dictatorship now. There is only one person and only his vote counts,'' he said, alluding to Más Santos. ``Anyone who has more influence than him is eliminated. Like Ninoska. He saw her as a possible successor. Everyone knows her name while his is hardly mentioned. She outshone him.''

 Some exiles have suggested that the organization may split into two: the new CANF and the old CANF. But Miranda says he does not intend to start a splinter group.

 ``I don't want to create division. I told them we have to ask for the resignation of Jorge Más Santos,'' he said.

 CANF Executive Director Joe García said the foundation will legally fight Miranda's efforts.

 Más Santos said accusations that he runs the CANF like a kingdom are ``ridiculous'' and an ``insult to the 150 directors'' who, he said, direct strategy.

 Más Santos also dismissed any notion that the foundation is falling apart.

 ``This is not a crisis,'' he said. ``This is an organization that was dealt the most serious blow when Jorge Más Canosa died. Everyone wrote the obit for the Cuban
 American National Foundation back then, and what bothers a lot of people is that we're still alive and kicking.''

                                   © 2001