Remembering the lives taken July 13, 1994: May their memory be a blessing

The history of man is the history of crimes, and history can repeat. So information is a defense. Through this we can build, we must build, a defense against repetition. - Simon Wiesenthal 

 

  

Thirty one years ago a great crime was committed that has still not been resolved. 

In the early morning hours of July 13, 1994 thirty seven men, women, and children were killed by government agents as they sought to travel to freedom on board of the “13 de Marzo” tugboat seven miles off the Cuban coast. Eleven of these Cubans were children ranging in age from Helen Martínez Enríquez, just five months old to Mayulis Méndez Tacaronte age seventeen.

 

International human rights bodies and organizations investigated the incident. The United Nations Human Rights Commission's special rapporteur on Cuba made the following observation on October 24, 1995 in his report on the human rights situation in Cuba to the UN General Assembly:

“Although the Government maintains that the authorities bore no responsibility for what was considered to have been an accident, the Special Rapporteur received testimony from some of the survivors indicating that Government launches from the port of Havana tried to stop the 13 de Marzo with pressurized water jets and then deliberately rammed it, causing it to sink. Non-governmental sources informed the Special Rapporteur that the number of persons who died was not 32, as the Government had stated, but at least 37 and that the families have for a year now been asking for an investigation to be initiated.”

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in a report released on October 16, 1996 concluded that what transpired that early morning “was not an accident but rather a premeditated, intentional act” by agents of the Cuban government and held the Cuban State responsible for violating the right to life of all the people who were shipwrecked and perished as a result of the sinking of the tug "13 de Marzo", which events occurred seven miles off the Cuban coast on July 13, 1994.

Thirty one years later, the men responsible for this mass murder remain at large and protected by the Cuban state and the survivors and family members have faced persecution, harassment, death threats, and arbitrary detentions for speaking out.  

In 2009 one of these family members, Jorge Garcia, agreed to address Florida International University students at a panel organized by the Free Cuba Foundation on the fifteenth anniversary of the July 13, 1994 “13 de Marzo” tugboat massacre. Prior to the event we met and he sat down and he explained on camera what had transpired before, during and after the events of July 13, 1994.

 

Jorge Garcia is a man who has suffered a loss few can imagine.

 

In a January 1998 Nightline interview Jorge described how he learned the news. “When I asked my daughter, ‘What about Juan Mario?’ ‘Papa, he's lost.’ ‘And Joel?’ ‘Papa, he's lost.’ ‘And Ernesto?’ ‘Papa, he's lost.’ And then we knew that other members of the family were all lost, 14 in all.” His daughter, Maria Victoria Garcia, had survived but she lost her brother, Joel García Suárez age 24;  her husband, Ernesto Alfonso Loureiro age 25; and her son, Juan Mario Gutiérrez García age 10.

 

Jorge García was detained and interrogated on several occasions. His longest detention was for 15 days. His daughter, María Victoria García, was one of three of his family who survived the massacre but was still in danger:  "They tried on several occasions to kill my daughter, because she was the first to speak out and contradict the regime’s official narrative.”

Father and daughter had spoken on camera to Nightline from Havana, Cuba about the July 13, 1994 attack on the “13 de Marzo” tugboat.  A year later in 1999 they had to go into exile as political refugees fearing for their lives.

Thirty one years later the remains of the thirty seven victims have not been recovered and returned to their families.  Nor has the state provided any compensation to the survivors or the families of the dead.

On July 12, 2014 Jorge Garcia took part in a flotilla organized by the Democracy Movement ( Movimento Democracia ) that got within 12 miles of the coastline of Cuba and five miles from the spot that today still serves as a watery grave for fourteen family members including his son and grandson. This is as close as he was able get to pay his respects to his loved ones.

On Saturday, July 13, 2024 at 6:00pm at Florida International University with members of the Free Cuba Foundation, the Christian Liberation Movement, and other people of good will, I took part in a 13 minute moment of silence to protest 30 years of injustice and pray that a serious investigation finally be conducted, that the remains of the victims be returned to their families, and that the individuals responsible for this atrocity face justice in a fair trial with their rights respected in a court of law.

Today, July 13 at 6:00pm at the Main Fountain at @FIU we held a 13 minute silent vigil to mark the day 30 years ago when agents of the Cuban dictatorship sank the "13 de Marzo" tugboat killing 37 men, women and children. #Truth #Memory #Cuba pic.twitter.com/5K3mFX3zgU

— Human Rights Violations in Cuba (@freecubafndtn) July 14, 2024

We also mourned the passing of  Jorge Garcia on June 3, 2024 and that of his daughter, María Victoria García, months earlier on January 2, 2024, without obtaining justice for their murdered family members.

 

In the meanwhile let us pray for the 37 murdered 31 years ago and the eleven children who never had a chance to grow up and live full lives in freedom and that they and their loved ones may one day have justice. May their memory be a blessing.

Helen Martínez Enríquez ( 5 months)
Cindy Rodríguez Fernández (age 2)
José Carlos Nicole Anaya (3)
Angel Rene Abreu Ruiz ( age 3)
Yisel Borges Alvarez (4) 
Caridad Leyva Tacoronte (age 5)
Juan Mario Gutiérrez García (age 10) 

Yousell E. Perez Tacoronte (age 11)
Yasser Perodin Almanza (age 11)
Eliecer Suarez Plasencia ( age 12)
Mayulis Mendez Tacoronte (age 17)
Miladys Sanabria Cabrera ( age 19 )
Odalys Muñoz García (age 21)
Yuliana Enríquez Carrazana (age 22)
Yaltamira Anaya Carrasco (age 22)
Lissett María Álvarez Guerra (age 24)
José Gregorio Balmaceda Castillo (24)
Joel García Suárez (age 24)
Ernesto Alfonso Loureiro (age 25)
María Miralis Fernández Rodríguez (age 27)

Pilar Almanza Romero (age 28)
Leonardo Notario Góngora ( age 28)
Jorge Arquímides Lebrijio Flores (age 28)   
Rigoberto Feut Gonzáles (age 31)
Omar Rodriguez Suarez (age 33)
Lázaro Enrique Borges Briel (age 34)
Julia Caridad Ruiz Blanco (age 35)
Martha Caridad Tacoronte Vega (age 36)
Eduardo Suárez Esquivel ( age 39)
Martha M.Carrasco Sanabria (age 45)  
Augusto Guillermo Guerra Martínez ( age 45)
Rosa María Alcalde Puig (age 47)    
Estrella Suárez Esquivel (age 48)
Reynaldo Joaquín Marrero (age 48)       
Manuel Cayol (age 50)           
Amado Gonzáles Raices (50)
Fidelio Ramel Prieto-Hernández (51)

 

R.I.P. Jorge A. Garcia, truth teller who had 14 family members murdered by agents of Communist Cuba on July 13, 1994

Jorge A. Garcia

 

'There are those who think that we should be full of rancor and a thirst for vengeance but I don't want revenge. I feel sorry for the people who assassinated my family. I can never be compensated for my loss. I will never be happy again with my family surrounding me. There will always be a tinge of sadness but I do want there to be a trial so that this situation can serve as a lesson and that these people or others like them in other parts of the world, don't do this kind of thing again. Not in Cuba. Not anywhere.''

Jorge A. García, July 13, 2004 (A decade after July 13, 1994 tugboat massacre) 

Jorge A. Garcia who had 14 members of his family massacred by agents of the Cuban dictatorship on July 13, 1994 rejected revenge but demanded justice, truth, and memory has reportedly died. Cuban activist Ramon Saul Sanchez shared a statement from his son Jorge Félix García.

"My father Jorge García Más is resting after a painful illness that in recent months stole the peace of all those around him who cared for him. He accompanied me for 60 years in which at his side I learned everything I know and I am what I have become with his help.
Today, June 2, 2024, the life of a human being who, full of pain, filled the lives of so many with love, ends. What does not go away is the tireless work of this man in favor of justice, which will remain there forever, as an example of personal sacrifice and at the same time as a perpetual tribute to those who he dedicated the last 30 years of his existence his battle for the victims of the sinking of the "13 de Marzo" Tugboat.
The legacy of a man like my father undoubtedly creates commitment, and sets an example to follow for anyone that injustice has taken away what is just. Let us give thanks for what we experienced at his side, for what we learned along the way, for the hug, the helping hand.
Jorge García Más (Jomás) is staying with us today, not leaving us."

First time I heard Jorge A. Garcia speak out about the July 13, 1994 massacre was on a television program on the eve of the arrival of Pope John Paul II to Cuba.

 

In the January 1998 Nightline interview Jorge described how he learned the news. “When I asked my daughter, ‘What about Juan Mario?’ ‘Papa, he's lost.’ ‘And Joel?’ ‘Papa, he's lost.’ ‘And Ernesto?’ ‘Papa, he's lost.’ And then we knew that other members of the family were all lost, 14 in all.” His daughter, Maria Victoria Garcia, had survived but she lost her brother, Joel García Suárez age 24;  her husband, Ernesto Alfonso Loureiro age 25; and her son, Juan Mario Gutiérrez García age 10.

 

Jorge García was detained and interrogated on several occasions. His longest detention was for 15 days. His daughter, María Victoria García, was one of three of his family who survived the massacre but was still in danger:  "They tried on several occasions to kill my daughter, because she was the first to speak out and contradict the regime’s official narrative.”

Father and daughter had spoken on camera to Nightline from Havana, Cuba about the July 13, 1994 attack on the “13 de Marzo” tugboat.  A year later in 1999 they had to go into exile as political refugees fearing for their lives.

In 2009, Jorge Garcia, agreed to address Florida International University students at a panel organized by the Free Cuba Foundation on the fifteenth anniversary of the July 13, 1994 “13 de Marzo” tugboat massacre. We meet beforehand, and I sat down with him and interviewed him in a series of short videos about the events surrounding this crime.

 María Victoria García passed away in early January 2024.

Jorge had been suffering from a serious illness for some time.

I learned he was desperately ill, and paid him a visit in hospice care on May 12, 2024. We spoke, and he remembered when we swapped t-shirts 15 years earlier at Florida International University. At the time I gave him my Free Cuba t-shirt and he in turn gave me a t-shirt that read "We will never forget" with the name Joel Garcia repeated in the back ground, and image of his murdered son Joel Garcia in the foreground.

Next month on July 13th, G-d-willing, I will be remembering the victims, demanding justice, and wearing the shirt given to me by Jorge A. Garcia, a truth teller who risked all to bear witness, and following his example.

 

What's outrageous in Miami? Journalist Tim Padgett's column confusing a national security threat with cultural insensitivity Jesse Scheckner

"Terrorism and deception are weapons not of the strong but of the weak." - Mohandas Gandhi

Officials from state terror sponsors shouldn't be given tours of secure facilities

 

WLRN Americas Editor Tim Padgett's latest column "What's outrageous in Miami is the outrage — and TSA's Cuba optics" is an example of a lack of seriousness.

 Jesse Scheckner writing in Florida Politics on the visit of Cuban officials to Miami International airport on May 20th provided important context: "The tour also happened just under five years after reportedly leaked Cuban intelligence showed that spies at MIA had stolen security codes and other confidential information."

There are also a number of reasons why the United States, or any sane country for that instance, would think twice about "cooperating" with the Cuban dictatorship in the fight against terror [or for that matter against drug trafficking].

Consider the following omitted by Mr. Padgett about the Cuban government currently in power.

The dictatorship in Cuba led by the Castro brothers came to power through a campaign of urban terrorism carried out by the July 26th Movement in the 1950s against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.  

 One of nine bombs placed in Havana by Fidel Castro's July 26 movement in El Collar store on Aguila St. in Aug 1957

Throughout the 1950s, Castro's July 26th Movement carried out multiple bombings terrorizing and killing Cuban civilians. 

Fidel Castro ordered the burning of Cuban sugar mills, warehouses, busses, and factories. He also ordered bombings of stores, theaters, nightclubs, and clinics around the island as part of the revolution against the Batista dictatorship. In 2015, the Office of Publications of Cuba's Council of State produced a four-volume chronology titled "We shall fight until the end" [Lucharemos Hasta el Final].

According to the 1958 volume, in May of that year "electric transformers that provided electricity to Santiago de Cuba, El Cobre and Contramaestre were blown up [by Castros' forces] leaving important urban areas without electricity ...". In Havana, a  member of Castro's 26 of July Movement is killed when he was "surprised setting up a bomb."  In "Santiago de Cuba,  two rebels fired against a government soldier in the intersection of Trocha and Corona streets. The soldier was seriously wounded." 

Two rebels set on fire furniture store' La Caridad". In "Ramon de las Yaguas neighborhood" in Oriente province "an activist from a government political party (PURS) is murdered." A revolutionary died when a bomb he was placing in front of a movie theater in Marianao (Havana province) went off.  And earlier this month a town near Santiago was left without electricity due to sabotage carried by rebel forces.  

These are some of the terrorist attacks carried out during the month of May 1958. The number of such crimes which took place during 1955,1956,1957 and 1958 were chronicled in 2015 by the Office of Publications of Cuba's Council of State. The many innocent victims and millions of property loses demonstrate without a doubt the mendacity of Fidel Castro's claim that "the Cuban revolution never engaged in terrorism."    

Raul Castro, considered by some as ‘the father’ of the modern crime of skyjacking, plotted several skyjackings. One skyjacking resulted in the deaths of 17 civilians on November 1, 1958.

Once the Castro brothers took power, and consolidated their rule through a campaign of revolutionary terror that included mass executions, they turned their attention to international terrorism, and promoting it as a necessary tactic for revolutionaries.

Castroism views terrorism as a legitimate tactic to advance its objectives. Havana published the "Mini Manual of the Urban Guerilla" by Carlos Marighela. Translated into many languages, it contains a chapter on terrorism that states: "Terrorism is a weapon the revolutionary can never relinquish."

 

The Castro brothers created a terrorist international.  

The Tricontinental Conference held in Havana from January 3-16, 1966, and the creation of Organization for the Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAAL) sought to support terrorist groups worldwide. “Castro insisted that ‘bullets not ballots’ was the way to achieve power.”  He maintained “‘conditions exist[ed] for an armed revolutionary struggle.’

Carlos the Jackal trained in Cuba.

Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (age 17)  attended the 1966 Conference. Afterwards, Ilyich spent the summer at Camp Matanzas, a guerrilla warfare school run by the Cuban DGI.  Following a string of terrorist attacks, he picked the alias “Carlos. France expelled three high‐ranking Cuban diplomats on July 10, 1975. ”The Cubans, according to the French Interior  Ministry, were “constant visitors” to the Paris hideout of Carlos”

 

"In the Arab world some 3,000 [Cuban advisers could] be found in Libya and Algeria, among other things training terrorists" in 1988. Havana today collaborates with Hamas and other Middle East terrorists groups.

 

Concern about Cuban diplomats touring security facilities at an American airport is not an example of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but common sense. 

Killing Americans in New York City. 

 

Aftermath of bombing in Fraunces Tavern in 1975 that killed four.

The Puerto Rican terrorist group, Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional, (FALN) carried out more than 130 bombings.  The FALN is responsible for:

 

•  the 1975 explosion at Fraunces Tavern, killing four and wounding 63 others. 

• A bombing spree in New York City in August 1977 that killed one, injured six, and forced the evacuation of 100,000 office workers; 

• and the purposeful targeting and maiming of four police officers. 

FALN was started in the mid-1960s and received advanced training in Cuba.

Frank Connor killed in Frances Tauvern by Cuban trained terrorists

Samuel T. Frances in his 1979 essay “Latin American Terrorism: The Cuban Connection” published by The Heritage Foundation found that "[a]lmost every significant Latin American terrorist group of left-wing orientation has had or has today links with Cuba.”  

Cuba was placed on the list of state terror sponsors on March 1, 1982. 

 

The US State Department confirmed Havana was using a narcotics ring to funnel arms and cash to the Colombian terrorist group M-19. Three years later on November 6, 1985, M-19 members stormed Colombia’s Palace of Justice. This attack led to many hostages killed, including 11 of the Colombian supreme court’s 25 justices. It is a perverse irony that the election of former M-19 terrorist Gustavo Petro to the Colombian presidency, and his subsequent request to rescind extradition requests for ELN guerillas housed by Cuba for a 2019 terrorist attack is part of the reason that the State Department is now saying that Havana is fully cooperating in anti-terrorism efforts.

The Cuban dictatorship has carried out acts of state terrorism against Cuban nationals including killing dozens of men, women, and children on July 13, 1994. Fidel Castro, in the case of the "13 de marzo" tugboat massacre, then defended and celebrated the men responsible for the massacre declaring their actions to be "exemplary, there's no denying it." 

Spy network plots murder of Americans in coordinated attack.  

The WASP Network (La Red Avispa) targeted U.S. military facilities, planned to smuggle arms and explosives into the U.S.,among other active measures. Havana carried out Operation Scorpion, an act of state terrorism using its WASP spy network in the United States that killed four in international airspace on February 24, 1996.

 

10 captured members of the WASP spy network.

The Castro regime's embrace of terrorism has caused unexpected blowback for the dictatorship. According to Havana, the October 6, 1976 bombing of Cubana airlines flight 455 that caused the deaths of 73 passengers was the work of two Cuban exile terrorists. 

Mr. Padgett ends his column citing this act of terrorism as follows.

"Still, all those outraged Miami politicos who are sure TSA exposed MIA to the DGI (Cuba’s spy service) might themselves remember Cuba also has aviation security concerns. It has ever since Cuban exile terrorists carried out the 1976 bombing of a Cuban passenger airliner that killed all 73 people onboard. That, too, was an outrage."

Yes it is, but what both he and the Cuban dictatorship omit is that the two Cuban exiles credited for the terrorist attack had first engaged in terrorism for the Castro brothers as members of the July 26th Movement in their struggle against Batista, and turned against the Castros when they imposed a new dictatorship, betraying their promises of a democratic revolution.

73 passengers on Cubana airlines flight 455 killed on 10/6/76

Padgett also viewed as "good policy" the Biden Administration’s "move a few years ago to take Colombia’s defunct Marxist guerrilla army, the FARC, off the U.S.’s terrorist list" in 2021. Yet so-called "FARC dissidents" continue to carry out terrorist attacks in Colombia in 2024.  

Hopefully, the Biden Administration hasn't given FARC terrorists tours of airport and port security around the United States like they have Cuban officials. This is not a question of slighting an ethnic group, or PTSD, but a question of national security.

Thankfully others in the media have taken this matter more seriously.

Castro regime agents sink a vessel heading to the United States, killing Cuban refugees.

Nathali Acosta Lemus, Aimara Meizoso León, Omar Reyes Valdés , Elisabeth Meizoso, and Rachel Ramaya Ullo

A Cuban coast guard ship sank a boat just north of Bahía Honda, in the province of Artemisa heading to the United States on October 28, 2022, and killed at least five Cuban refugees, and others are missing. This is the news that the Castro regime seeks to obfuscate. Four women (Aimara Meizoso León, Nathali Acosta Lemus, Rachel Ramaya Ulloa, Indira Serrano Cala),  two men (León Omar Reyes Valdés, Yerandy García Meizoso), and a two year old girl (Elisabeth Meizoso) were killed. Journalist Mario Penton shared the above images of the victims over his social media. 

Indira Serrano Cala (age 18)

 

The boat sank this Friday "when it collided with a surface unit of Border Guard Troops during its identification," according to a note from the Ministry of the Interior reported 14ymedio.

That the United States Embassy in Havana and a news bureau on the island give the dictatorship the benefit of the doubt is an outrage. 

Yerandy García Meizoso

Consider the following partial history of how Cuban government agents deal with Cuban refugees fleeing the island.

 

Nine years before the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp was established and there were no detainees from the war on terror being held on the base atrocities were being committed, and the world paid little notice.

 * On June 19, 1993 at 2 p.m., U.S. guards, startled by the sounds of detonations, saw Cuban troops aboard patrol boats dropping grenades in the paths of several swimmers headed for the U.S. base.

* On June 20, 1993 at 1:30 p.m., Cuban troops repeated the action, then strafed the water with machine-gun fire.

U.S. soldiers patrolling the perimeter of the Guantanamo Naval Base were horrified by what they observed. This led to a formal diplomatic note to the Cuban government by the Clinton Administration. This in turn led to a front page story in The Miami Herald on July 7, 1993 which described what had been witnessed:

Cuban marine patrols, determined to stop refugees from reaching the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, have repeatedly tossed grenades and shot at fleeing swimmers and recovered some bodies with gaff hooks, U.S. officials charged Tuesday. At least three Cubans have been killed in the past month as Cuban patrol boats attacked swimmers within sight of U.S. Navy personnel at Guantanamo.

On July 13, 1994, a group of 72 Cubans, including children and women, tried to escape from the Island of Cuba aboard an old tugboat. State Security Forces, and four Ministry of Transportation boats of the Havana regime intercepted the boat 7 miles off the coast of Cuba, with water jets from pressure hoses pulled people off the deck, tore children from the arms of their mothers and sank the tugboat. 37 Cubans were murdered, 11 of them children.  This crime was documented by the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 1995, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 1996, Amnesty International in 1997, and referenced by Human Rights Watch in their 1999 report.

 

Why is none of this mentioned on background, or used to inform American diplomats on the likelihood that what occurred today was an "accident" or a premeditated extrajudicial killing?

 

Saddened that reading news in the United States about Cuba requires the same critical thinking skills applied to interpreting the official media of the Castro regime. Megan Janetsky, the new Associated Press Correspondent's first piece, repeated in her article's title "Crisis-stricken Cuba caught between ally Russia, nearby U.S." a talking point by the Cuba lobby that makes no sense when looking at the historical record, and present reality. The Castro regime did not have a problem criticizing Moscow during the Gorbachev years. This included censoring Soviet publications, and executing officers viewed as contaminated by Glasnost and Perestroika. Relations did not return to "normal" until the Vladimir Putin took power in 2000. 

The Castro regime's hatred of the United States during the Cuban Missile Crisis manifested itself in trying to manipulate the Russians into launching a first strike on the United States. It was the Russians that sought an accommodation with the Americans.

Now Ms. Janetsky reports the regime talking points with the title "Cuba says at least 5 dead after boat heading to US crashes", but does not provide any of the above background in the story or what the families of the current victims are saying.

 

Worse yet, was the statement from the U.S. Embassy in Havana taking at face value regime claims that it was an "accident" considering the Cuban government's history of brutal cruelty visited on fleeing refugees. 

 

Listen to the survivors of the "13 de marzo" tugboat massacre, and family members of those who didn't make it in 1994, and the need for an international investigation to learn what actually happened becomes clear.