3 Cuban Refugees Act as Mediators at Prison : Men Joining Effort to Break Stalemate at Atlanta Facility

Struggling to break a four-day impasse, federal officials permitted three prominent Cuban refugees to act as mediators Thursday in negotiations with rioting prisoners holding 94 hostages at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.

Millionaire emigre businessman Jorge Mas Canosa, poet-writer Armando Valladares and former political prisoner Roberto Martin Perez entered the prison to meet with three of the inmate leaders Thursday evening.

“These people were desired by the (prisoners),” Justice Department spokesman Tom Stewart said. “They do not represent our views, speak for us or represent us in any way.”

But both Mas and Valladares have close ties to the Reagan Administration. Mas, 48, a veteran of the Bay of Pigs invasion, is founder of a powerful anti-Castro lobbying group, the Cuban-American National Foundation.

Backs Radio Marti

He was a key proponent of Radio Marti, the U.S.-funded station that broadcasts into Cuba. He also is a major contributor in local, state and national political races.

Valladares, a political prisoner for 22 years in Cuba’s worst prisons, was freed in 1982. He wrote the book “Against All Hope,” an international best-seller about the tortures he and others suffered there.

Martin Perez, also a former political prisoner, was freed in May after 27 years. He has mediated prison disputes in Cuba and knows several of the detainees who have taken control of the facility in Atlanta.

As the mediators met with detainees, Weldon Kennedy, the FBI special agent in charge in Atlanta, said he believes a group of leaders was emerging from among the Cubans. “I feel much more comfortable now than we have up until this point. There appears to have been some organization going on. The prison is now being cleaned up (by the inmates), debris is being cleaned up. . . . “

The government’s conciliatory approach to the prison crisis was signaled earlier Thursday, when Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III placed telephone calls to the families of the Atlanta hostages being held in Atlanta and the 28 captives in Oakdale, La. Meese pledged that federal authorities will “not do anything that will increase their risk,” because “the safety of your loved ones is our paramount goal.”

“At the same time,” Meese said in the calls placed from the Washington office of J. Michael Quinlan, director of the Bureau of Prisons, “we are prepared and will take necessary precautions to protect lives if any serious threat should develop.

“Nothing is more important to me as attorney general than the safe release of your family members, and every effort will be taken to make sure that this happens as soon as possible,” Meese told the two groups of hostage relatives, who were being served Thanksgiving meals in buildings near the prisons.

“Communications appear to have improved at both institutions,” Quinlan said at an early afternoon briefing. “Leadership is emerging at both locations, allowing progress to be made. . . . The ability of the (government’s) negotiators to count on the return appearance of certain people at certain times indicates to us there are improved communications.

“Discussions at Oakdale, in particular, have become more detailed. We better understand what the detainees want at Oakdale,” he added.

In Louisiana, however, Justice Department spokesman Mark Sheehan said: “I’d like to discourage any anticipation of a quick result.”

Officers Eat Dinner

As families of the Oakdale hostages ate Thanksgiving dinners in a nearby church, law officers ate their turkey off Styrofoam plates in the noonday sun at the prison, and officials dampened hopes for an early end to the crisis.

With the standoff there in its sixth day, the hundreds of police, National Guardsmen, Border Patrol officers, FBI agents and emergency crews appeared to be digging in for a long stay.

The prison parking lot has become an ever-growing bivouac of trailers, tents, buses and even half a dozen full-size mobile homes that serve as barracks and makeshift command posts. Telephone lines, electric generators, water tanks and outhouses have been installed, and a mess tent serves three meals a day and endless cups of coffee.

Behind the 15-foot razor-wire fence, inmates appeared calm, taking turns patrolling the perimeter of the grounds and occasionally hoisting signs with messages for the outside world.

Banners Bear Messages

“Mr. Reagan, If You Deny Us Freedom, We Star Kill,” one banner read. Other signs hanging from the gutted prison buildings took a more imploring tone, such as: “Mr. Reagan, If You Deny Us Our Freedom, You Kill Us.”

Although there have been no confirmed sightings of the hostages since Monday, both Sheehan and Quinlan said they were confident the hostages are safe.

The Cubans “have kept their commitment to keep them safe to the best of our knowledge,” Quinlan said.

No negotiations with the Oakdale detainees took place Thursday, according to Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.), who has been monitoring the talks. During Wednesday’s sessions, Breaux said, federal officials gave the Cubans a written response to their list of seven proposals. Since then, “they’re going over it in great detail, line by line,” he said.

The senator said, however, that the government’s written response was in English. The detainees have indicated through signs they have hung in the compound that they are facing language difficulties. Breaux said, though, that language was not a problem. The government’s response, he said, was easy to translate

Relatives at Church

Earlier in the day, about 300 relatives of the hostages gathered at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, about a mile from the prison.

Many of the families have kept constant vigil in the community hall at the church. Cots, cribs, board games, decks of cards and a couple of rocking chairs provide some touches of home.

Decorating one wall were crayoned cards that local schoolchildren made earlier to cheer up Hoffpauir’s two children, a third-grader and a fifth-grader.

“Wish you luck and hope your dad gets out without getting hurt,” one read.

“I know how you feel,” another child wrote. “I did not have a dad onse” The children drew cheery pictures of rainbows and smiling stick figures. “P.S. Try to cheer up,” one note urged.

A handful of the Cuban detainees’ friends and relatives also were present. One pleaded for the inmates to abandon their revolt.

Urges Surrender

“I drove in ‘specially because I wanted to tell Jose that I love him and please surrender,” said Anna Malczon, whose fiance, Jose Antonio Perez, is believed to be inside the compound.

“We’re asking the men to please listen to all the options they have, to understand what’s been offered to them, to keep calm, keep the faith and think of the family,” Malczon said.

She said Perez, 32, has been detained at Oakdale for three months after completing a three-year sentence in a New Jersey state prison. Malczon refused to say what crime he had committed.

“He only served three years, so it wasn’t that big,” she said.

At one point during a press conference, she burst into tears after explaining that prison officials had declined to tell her whether Perez was still in the compound or was among the 54 allowed to leave shortly after the siege began Saturday night.

Prior to the mediators’ arrival in Atlanta, FBI agents and negotiators inside the prison continued to man the phones around the clock. As the stalemate continued under a steady drizzle, federal officers used binoculars and video cameras to identify hostages and to monitor the movements of prisoners thought to be particularly dangerous.

One of those they watched most closely, as suggested by their radio transmissions, was Thomas Silverstein, an American serving three consecutive life sentences for the murders of a fellow prisoner and a prison guard. He reportedly has spent the last several years isolated in a specially built cell.

Silverstein was most often reported by the guards to be alone, and did not appear to be closely allied with the four detainees thought to be leaders of the uprising. They have used the aliases Charlie, Pepito, Ciro and Cristova.

The guards reported by radio isolated incidences of vandalism and looting Thursday, but most of the movement by prisoners appeared to be uneventful. At noontime, guards reported that the detainee called Charlie was riding around in a golf cart.

“I have the impression that everybody is taking a holiday,” Stewart said.

Outside the prison, relatives of the Cuban detainees continued to complain that they have received no news about their loved ones, even those who have surrendered and have been moved to other prisons.

More Inmates Surrender

Thirty-nine more Cubans and one American surrendered to authorities in Atlanta on Thursday and were taken from the prison compound by bus; 241 Cubans and 171 Americans have voluntarily left the prison since the siege began Monday. Those who defected Thursday, like others before them, simply made their way to guard towers and turned themselves in.

Late Wednesday and early Thursday, prisoners made sporadic attempts to build barricades between areas they control and the perimeter, but Stewart said the “opportunities for prisoners to leave are always present.”

Yet the 1,156 Cubans and 23 Americans remaining in the prison showed no sign of leaving late Thursday, suggesting that the support of the vast majority of Cuban prisoners had solidified behind the uprising.

Forty-nine of the roughly 1,000 Oakdale inmates were Americans. Eleven of those were among the 54 inmates allowed to leave shortly after the siege began Saturday night. Prison officials described the Americans as federal prisoners nearing the end of their sentences who worked as cooks, groundskeepers and maintenance men at the facility.

Sheehan said he did not know whether the 38 Americans still inside the Oakdale facility had joined the uprising or were being held as additional hostages by the Cubans. “We don’t consider them hostages or non-hostages,” he said.

Breaux said the Americans are being kept in a separate building in the compound. “They are not hostages, but I could see where they would probably feel they are.”

Douglas Jehl reported from Washington and David Lauter from Oakdale, La. Staff writers Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington, Barry Bearak in Atlanta and Tamara Jones in Oakdale contributed to this story.