© 2003 ABIP
by: Agustin
Blazquez and Jaums Sutton
On
Aug. 11, 1994, due to mounting discontent with his regime, Castro gave
the order to the Cuban Coast Guard and security forces not to obstruct
illegal departures (sinking their rafts and killing the people) from
Cuban shores. Immediately, Cubans began abandoning Castro’s hellhole
in anything that would float.
According
to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) timeline, on Aug.
19, 1994, the U.S. Coast Guard initiated "Operation ABLE VIGIL, a
Cuban Mass Migration Emergency Plan in response to uncontrolled
migration from Cuba and the announcement by President Clinton
prohibiting the entry of undocumented Cuban migrants into the U.S. The
President directs the migrants are to be transported to safe havens
outside the U.S."
The
INS defines a "migrant" as a "person traveling from one
location to another."
The
INS defines a "refugee" as a "person who has been
interviewed by a competent authority (ex. INS, a U.N. agency, etc.) and
determined to have a well founded fear of persecution and that person
requires protection. While a person may come from a country with poor
human rights, they must be interviewed to determine if that particular
individual is subject to persecution or torture.”
Cubans
escaping Castro’s far left-fascist revolution have historically been
classified as political refugees who leave their homeland seeking
freedom in the U.S. No matter what the spin doctors of the Clinton
administration and beyond say, Cubans are still coming looking for
freedom, which is, in general, a very different story from most others
seeking entry into the U.S.
That’s
why Cubans tend to love and appreciate the U.S. so much, in opposition
to other groups that come here just for economic reasons.
But,
by way of a secret arrangement between Clinton and Castro in 1994, a new
policy was put into place effective May 2, 1995: All Cubans intercepted
at sea by U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships would automatically be
repatriated forcibly to Cuba.
In a
May 14, 1995, article in the Washington Post by Lally Weymouth titled
"A Sordid Deal With Castro," she said: "The Clinton
administration has thrown Castro a lifeline. For the administration to
abandon the traditional American policy of welcoming Cuban political
refugees to U.S. shores – and to pick up Cuban refugees on the high
seas and return them to Havana - represents a profound betrayal of
principle.
"Thus
far, only the State Department desk officer, Dennis Hays, who risked his
career by asking to be reassigned after he found out about the secret
talks, emerges with dignity from this sad and sordid episode."
Policy
Analyst John P. Sweeney, in the Executive Memorandum of the Heritage
Foundation dated May 15, 1995, number 412, said: "But in a
misguided attempt to avoid a future refugee crisis with Cuba, the
Clinton Administration reversed more than 30 years of principled U.S.
policy based on the defense of human rights and democracy in Cuba. This
decision to return refugees who are willing to risk their lives to
escape Castro is akin to returning to the former East Germany people who
dug under the Berlin Wall to escape Soviet domination of Eastern
Europe."
Unfortunately,
this inhumane and misguided policy has been followed to date by the Bush
administration.
With
horror, we have frequently watched on live television from South Florida
the sorrowful spectacle of the U.S. Coast Guard engaged in techniques
similar to the brutal regime of Castro. Sadly, the U.S. Coast Guard has
been reduced to following what Castro ordered his henchmen to do when he
sank the tugboat "13 de marzo" on July 13, 1994, causing the
deaths of 41 innocent men and women, along with 12 children.
According
to the INS, "President Bush directed the Coast Guard to interdict
migrants at sea and return them in Executive Order 12807. Many migrant
cases also start out as search and rescue cases, another mission of the
Coast Guard."
And,
as callous as the mechanical repatriation policy is, the U.S. Coast
Guard has been caught on videotape taking an aggressive stand against
innocent, defenseless people trying desperately to get to freedom.
A
person watching one of these horrid incidents on May 6, 2003, live on
the Spanish television channel Telemundo, said, “The treatment
received [from] the Coast Guard is alarming. One can see that they are
trying to maintain their route to the U.S. coast of Key Largo.
“A
helicopter has come down [low] enough to cause [turbulence] in the
water, making it more difficult for the swimmers to keep going. Also,
the two vessels of the U.S. Coast Guard are deliberately getting
together as a barrier in their objective to cut off their route. Instead
of giving up, these rafters swam underwater to follow their route to
shore and touch land.
"There
is information that once rafters are picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard,
there is seldom an interview. They are simply repatriated, their fate
unknown.
"This
policy by Clinton/Castro is still effective now. It is only a policy
agreed to by two infamous individuals and not a law. This administration
can write it off or make exceptions as they see fit. This policy is
inhumane; at least they deserve a formal interview without running the
risk of drowning or being repatriated."
Prompted
by the inhumane images on live television on May 6, Florida Congressman
Lincoln Diaz-Balart wrote to President Bush: "As I write this
letter four Cuban refugees are literally yards from arriving to Key
Largo, Florida, after having been intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard.
As you know, the current policy calling for the return of Cuban refugees
captured at sea was initiated by the Clinton Administration. I have
always opposed that policy and continue to do so.
"I
have received information regarding these refugees. It is my
understanding that one of the four was incarcerated in Cuba for 10 years
and another has a charge pending by the dictatorship for owning a used
television, which appears to be a punishable crime in Castro's Cuba. I
am further informed that another one of the refugees is a legal
permanent resident of the United States. The family members of the
refugees have reiterated that they fear for their relative's well-being
if they are repatriated to Cuba. It is important that these refugees not
be repatriated to Cuba and be allowed to enter the United States."
In the
article "Cuba 'The Voyage of the Damned'" by David Hoech dated
May 19, 2003, he said: "Last Friday’s Miami Herald article ‘2
Migrants threatened officers, U.S. says’ referred to those fleeing
slavery as migrants instead of immigrants. The article stated, ‘The
two used a knife and part of a boat mast to ward off Coast Guard crew
members trying to stop them and two other men, according to federal
officials. At one point, a Coast Guard officer drew his handgun and
other officers sprayed the men with pepper spray to try to control
them.’
"Let’s
get this straight – these men are in the water with a pocketknife and
a piece of wood, and they posed a threat to those who are secure on
boats with guns. The ‘migrants’ were jailed in Key West, and bond
was set at $70,000. If convicted they could face 20 years in prison and
deportation after serving the time. I guess that is not so bad
considering going back to Cuba would more than likely make them
recipients of lead from Castro’s firing squad.
"These
‘migrants’ should have signed a paper before leaving Cuba that they
would work at IBP, Tyson Foods, Perdue Chicken and other companies that
hire illegal Mexicans. ... If the people who lost their lives trying to
reach freedom from Castro’s slave island were laid head to toe they
would stretch from Havana to Key West. When the mini-series 'The
Holocaust' was shown in Germany in the seventies, German children asked
their parents and grandparents what the hell were they doing when this
was taking place. Our children and grandchildren will ask the same
question – what were we doing to help the voyage of the denied,
detained and eventually deported fleeing slavery in Cuba."
The
office of Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen confirmed that three
of the escapees were able to touch U.S. soil and were able to stay, but
the U.S. resident, Ramon Aguilar, was sent back to the U.S. Naval Base
of Guantanamo in Cuba to clarify his immigration situation as a former
U.S. resident.
Certainly
after Castro’s April crime spree in which he summarily incarcerated 75
pro-democracy activists and executed three black men, the Bush
administration needs to make significant changes in relation to the
atrocious legacy of secret arrangements and deals made by Clinton with
the tyrant of Cuba. Even the European Union has been more forthcoming
than the U.S. in its condemnation and cancellation of its help programs
that have served to keep the regime afloat!
The
Europeans are even canceling their cultural exchanges with Castro’s
Cuba, which the U.S. is not.
After
the 1962 Kennedy-Khrushchev agreement (which neither the USSR nor Cuba
respected), the U.S. was reduced to policing and apprehending any
pro-democracy group from attempting to liberate Cuba from any base in
the Americas. So the U.S. has been protecting the Castro regime all
these years from being overthrown.
It is
that lack of long-term vision that has plagued the U.S. policy toward
Latin America. That’s why in addition to Castro we now have a
dangerous imitator in Venezuela, Chavez; the Marxist Lula in Brazil; the
Marxist Kirchner in Argentina and the prospect of another communist
being elected in El Salvador, Schafick Handal, the son of a Palestinian
and a longtime militant Marxist-Leninist.
So,
while the U.S. is distracted in other faraway places, grave policy
errors with regard to the countries south of our border continue,
unabated.
To
return escaping slaves to the plantation of the tyrant is simply
inhumane.
Those
acts of inhumanity against Cuban refugees grew during the Clinton
administration and culminated with the criminal return of Elian Gonzalez
to Castro.
The
Bush administration is long overdue to reverse these shameful practices.
©
2003 ABIP
