Twenty five years after the flotilla to pay tribute to the 37 victims of the "13 de Marzo" Tugboat Massacre: A reflection from back then

Twenty  five years ago, one year after the massacre, Cuban exiles gathered together and set out in a flotilla that peacefully invaded Cuban national territory to travel to the spot where the "13 de Marzo" tugboat sank and where the human remains of the 37 victims still reside never returned to their families to this day to hold religious services for them.

 Hard to believe that its been 25 years.  Found an old essay written  just returned from the flotilla on July 14, 1995 and reproduce excerpts below:

On the Straits

The purpose of the trip is peaceful. The mastermind behind this project is Ramon Saul Sanchez, of the Cuban National Commission. I leave Miami convinced that the possibility of death or imprisonment in Cuba is the likely outcome of this flotilla. As best as one can prepare for such terrible possibilities I am at peace with these grim prospects. Why are we doing this? We do it for the liberation of the Cuban nation. Because we feel a pain in our soul every time we see another raft intercepted in the straits, and we think of all those who have perished. We do it because of the senseless murder of [37] women and children and of the thousands more who have been murdered by Castro''s tyranny. We do it because we must.

[...]

It is still dark when we leave. We pray together for the fulfillment of our non-violent ceremony. We jump aboard a forty foot lobster boat. Ramon Saul Sanchez comes to our boat embraces and shakes hands with some of us. He apologizes that they don't have more room on the lead boat so that we can all travel together. A WSVN reporter and cameraman join us on departure and begin to do interviews. "This is a bad sign," someone says. "How do you figure?" replies another. "This is channel 7 covering us," he continues,"don't you know their motto: if it bleeds it leads." Gentle laughter among those who hear the exchange. 

Later they leave on a speed boat to interview someone else. We sleep and talk. As the hours pass and the sun climbs higher. Anticipation mounts, the smell of diesel and the choppy seas take their toll on the passengers. All of a sudden dozens of dolphins start jumping in the wake of the boat. God's creatures living free on the open sea. A sense of emotional uplift spreads through the boat. Temporarily we forget our worries and enjoy these creatures entertaining themselves and us.

[...]

As we near the12 mile limit we begin to see Cuban aircraft circling. We wave our flags and sing the Cuban national anthem. Joy fills our hearts our mission has been partially accomplished. We can see Democracia in the distance leading us further into Cuban waters. One of my compatriots asks if we have entered Cuban waters. Yes, we tell him. He throws a bucket over the side and draws the Cuban water out and pours it into a bottle shaped like the Virgin. This was his holy water: Cuban water.

At this point we begin to see a military helicopter circling the flotilla. We wave our flags and shout our greetings. The Brothers to the Rescue fly formation with some of the Cuban planes. We see a MiG high overhead, and I feel proud of these pilots in small propellar driven aircraft facing off with military helicopters and MiGs.

As we continue in, we can see the Havana skyline. Someone says they see someone signaling with a mirror from one of the buildings. We begin to make out four dots leaving the island and growing larger. We continue in further. La Democracia speeds ahead. As the ships grow larger; we can see that they are gunboats. 

Our captain stops. His brother tells him to go further, "know when to say when," he responds. As he ponders whether to go further or not. We stare out across the water as La Democracia tries to evade the gunboats and make it to the 6 mile limit. We can see the two gunboats pass on both sides of the ship. 

La Democracia turns around and speeds towards us. They're radio has been knocked out. We need to call the Coast guard. They've been rammed. They have wounded on board, among them Dade County Commisioner Pedro Reboredo, who is going into shock. Our captain radioed in and heads out as fast as the engines will take him.

I learn later that two of the Brothers to the Rescue planes flew over Havana and dropped bumper stickers over the capitol. This was done as a diversionary tactic when the Democracia was attacked by the Cuban gunboats. The bumper stickers read: "Comrades no. Brothers."

Today, as we've done since 1995 we held a silent vigil for justice for the 37 Cuban men, women, and children extra-judicially executed on July 13, 1994. Today, it was at the Embassy of Cuba in Washington DC. Wherever you are in the world I hope you'll join us in continuing this demand for truth and justice using nonviolent means.
 
''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 García, July 13, 2004 (A decade after July 13, 1994 tugboat massacre) 

In 2006, in the year that we marked  10 years since the Brothers to the Rescue Shootdown the Free Cuba Foundation at Florida International University had both Jose Basulto, of Brothers to the  Rescue and Ramon Saul Sanchez, of the Democracy Movement had a conversation about the realities of US-Cuba relations. A portion of the conversation was recorded and is available on Youtube.

The Wasp Network, that killed Americans and plotted a terror attack on US soil, were not the Castro regime's last soldiers of the Cold War

Some of what they left out.

Wasp Network is a 2019 film now playing on Netflix that is based on the book The Last Soldiers of the Cold War by the Brazilian author, journalist, and politician Fernando Morais that paints a sympathetic and whitewashed picture of the Castro regime's spy network that was rounded up by the FBI in 1998. To have a better idea about who the author is and his ideological motivations consider the following factoid. Morais's first book published in 1976 titled A Ilha about his three month visit to Cuba, at a time when Brazil's military dictatorship had severed relations with the Castro's communist dictatorship since 1964, and Brazilian passports carried a warning: "Not valid for Cuba."

This visit and the book upon which it was based made Morais an icon of the Brazilian left.

Olivier Assayas, who wrote the screenplay, based on the book by Morais, and directed the film, initially encountered resistance from the Castro regime, but found all doors opened to him and he spent half a year in Havana, Cuba  to complete the film.

Therefore it should be a surprise that the book that the film is based on and the film portrays the Castro dictatorship, and its spy network in a favorable and non-threatening light. The film is a masterclass and misinformation, but also a demonstration that to satisfy Havana what should have been a powerful and impacting film ended up a mediocrity, panned by critics and with even a lower score among the audience according to Rotten Tomatoes.

The WASP Network (La Red Avispa) was made up of over forty officers and agents, four escaped to Cuba when the FBI began rounding them up. Ten were captured, and five of them pleaded guilty and cooperated with the prosecution. They are unpersons in Cuba, and the remaining five became the focus of an international propaganda campaign organized by the Castro regime that did not end until December 2014.

The film briefly mentions the Ochoa Affair, and touches on its political aspect of liquidating General Arnaldo Ochoa, a popular general among the ranks, who was executed by firing squad in 1989, but fails to mention the Castro regime's extensive involvement in drug trafficking.



Whether consciously or not, to film in Cuba, and not have regime censors shut down their production, he gutted the film of what would have been powerful elements that would have provided context, not to mention drama and pathos to his film . It would've provided a dramatic explanation of the July 13, 1995 overflight of Havana by Brothers to the Rescue but this would have necessitated putting on film the July 13, 1994 "13 de marzo" tugboat incident when agents of the Castro regime sank a tugboat six miles off the coast of Havana and attacked and killed 37 men, women, and children trying to flee the island. Next month will mark 26  years without justice for the victims. A detailed report on this crime against humanity was published by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 1996 and is available online.

One year later on the anniversary of the killings, and with the bodies never recovered, a flotilla of boats organized by Cuban pro-democracy groups tried to reach the spot where the tugboat rested with the remains of the tugboat victims to hold a service for the dead. The lead boat Democracia had its hull crushed by Cuban government gunboats, and turned back, as had been agreed upon by organizers, if the dictatorship's forces turned violent. At that moment Brothers to the Rescue that had been flying overhead changed course and flew over Havana dropping leaflets that read "Comrades No. Brothers."  This outraged the Castro brothers and I believe this is when they began plotting their revenge which they carried out seven months later.

Other and more dramatic activities carried out by the Wasp Network were left out of the film.

The spies had received instructions from Havana to burn down an airport hangar, sabotage planes, first terrorize then send a mail bomb to kill a CIA agent living in Bal Harbour identified as Jesus Cruza Flor. The network provided material intelligence that assisted in the shoot down of two civilian planes on February 24, 1996 killing four Americans that they do not even show or name in the film. They are treated as non-persons.

The Wasp Network engaged in espionage: targeted U.S. military facilities, planned to smuggle arms and explosives into the United States, provided information that led to the extrajudicial killings of Armando Alejandre, Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales, infiltrated two non-violent exile groups, and carried out numerous other activities to sow division, shape public opinion, and meddle in U.S. elections.

The Cuban spy network gathered personal information of American military personnel "compiling the names, home addresses, and medical files of the U.S. Southern Command’s top officers and that of hundreds of officers stationed at Boca Chica Naval Station in Key West."  What did the Castro regime plan to do with this information?

The WASP spy network was disbanded in 1998 by the FBI, but another high ranking Castro spy burrowed deep in the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, Ana Belen Montes, was not arrested until days after the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were attacked on September 11, 2001.

All of this came out during their trial. Gerardo Hernandez, the head of the network was convicted of murder conspiracy and espionage and condemned to a double life sentence.

Hernandez had his double life sentence commuted by President Obama on December 17, 2014 as part of the concessions made in the drive to normalize relations between the two countries.

In April 2020, Gerardo Hernández, convicted of murder conspiracy for the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown and espionage for heading up the WASP spy network, was promoted to Deputy National Coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), an Orwellian agency, and is now tasked with spying on all Cubans in the island.

There is a long history of espionage by the Castro regime targeting the United States that stretches back to the early years of the Cuban dictatorship, and policy makers should not forget or underestimate it. These were not the last soldiers of the "Cold War", because Cuban spies continue to carry out the orders of the dictatorship in Havana even when that means carrying out acts of terrorism, torture, and murder.

In the meantime we can challenge the Castro regime's narrative and remember the victims and continue to demand justice. The case of the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown on February 24, 1996 has been studied in detail and a report prepared in 1999 by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights with references to other sources. The Wasp Network film never identified the four men killed on that Saturday afternoon 24 years ago. Lets challenge their narrative with facts and documentary evidence. Let us also remember and say the names of Armando Alejandre, Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales.

Obama Cuba Policy Legacy: Resurrecting systemic legal segregation

"If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas." - Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac

President met Castro in Panama as Cuban activists attacked by Castro's diplomats

The Obama Administration beginning in 2009 pushed for a normalization of relations with an abnormal and totalitarian regime in Cuba that treats its own people as chattel. On December 17, 2014 the announcement was formally made and since then new relations established.

Throughout this process human rights have not only worsened in Cuba, but also in the United States with the approval of The White House until popular outrage has forced them to back track. Consider for a moment three episodes from 2016.

Protests against Carnival for discriminating against Cubans to appease Castro regime

First, Carnival Cruise Line signed an agreement with Castro regime officials on March 21, 2016 to sail to Cuba from the United States. In order to conduct their core mission Carnival had to agree to enforce the Castro dictatorship's policy that bans all Cubans from traveling into the island by water. It did not matter if Cubans born on the island were now citizens of another country.   Obama's Treasury Department on July 7, 2015 signed off on the Carnival Cruise Line - Castro regime alliance ignoring that an entire class of Americans would be discriminated against based on their national origin. Mass protests, boycotts and lawsuits led the Castro regime to blink when it became apparent that popular outrage would lead the cruise ship company to cancel its cruises.

Second, the U.S. embassy in Cuba floated a trial balloon that announced that the United States government accepted that U.S. citizens of Cuban descent born in the United States are not recognized by the Castro regime as Americans but as Cuban nationals subject to the dictatorship's laws and regulations. Even though one was born in the United States and has never applied for dual nationality in Cuba they are treated as a Cuban born by the Castro regime in terms of responsibilities but not rights and the government of the USA goes along with it in order to have "normal relations." This also means that these U.S. citizens would be denied consular access in Cuba. The State Department once again had to back track in May of 2016 when this trial balloon sunk amidst negative press coverage and popular outrage. 

Discriminating against Cuban born crew to placate Castro regime

Thirdly, American Airlines is pulling Cuban-American pilots and flight attendants off flights to Cuba in order to placate demands by the Castro regime. Fabiola Santiago, of The Miami Herald, obtained an American Airlines memo announcing the policy as follows: “Please remember that those who are Cuban born should be removed with pay from Cuba flights until we can verify what requirements the Cuban government has for these crew members.” The Democracy Movement has announced that if American Airlines does not end this policy that they will take action.

President Obama's Cuba policy legacy is to resurrect systemic legal segregation against American citizen's based on their national origin in order to placate a foreign dictatorship. Benjamin Franklin was right: "If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas."

Reflections on the Free Cuba Protest Flotilla

 "Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals." - Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1964 

Freedom Flotilla protests discriminatory visa policies of the Castro regime

Active non-violence is not easy but it beats violent resistance in two areas: 1) There is a higher cost in responding to nonviolent resistance with violence and repression. 2) Committing violence exerts a greater psychological toll that makes it more difficult to mobilize large numbers of persons compared to nonviolent action.

However, despite these two advantages nonviolence is not a magic bullet. Active non-violence needs the development of tactics and strategy to be successful. You can't beat a plan without a plan. The first step is to have a vision of where you want to go.

In the campaign generated over the Carnival Cruise to Cuba, that initially accepted discriminating against Cuban-borns, refusing to sell them tickets to satisfy the demands of the Castro regime. Ramon Saul Sanchez of the Democracy Movement has a vision of where he wants to go: "I'm sure that someday all the walls will come down and new bridges will be built, and Cubans will be able return to their homeland," said Ramón Saul Sánchez.

Mass protests, law suits and negative press led to Carnival first backing down and selling tickets to Cuban-borns stating that if the Cuban government did not allow this group of travelers to enter Cuba because of their national origin then the cruise would be called off on May 1st.  A short while later the Castro regime announced that it would permit Cuban-borns to travel to Cuba on the cruise ship ending this discriminatory practice.

Prior to all this the Democracy Movement had announced a "protest flotilla" against Carnival for discriminating against travelers of Cuban origin. However when Carnival changed its stance the tone and mobilization of the protest was lessened.

Nevertheless the protest continued, although no longer directed at Carnival, but to highlight the continued discrimination by the Castro regime. Ramón Saul Sánchez called on the Cuban dictatorship that in the same way that they ended "the discriminatory regulation that impeded a Cuban to enter or exit by sea that they now take a second step" and end the obligation of Cubans to obtain a visa explaining that "they are instruments to get money and to discriminate."

The challenge was then made that if the discriminatory practice were not repealed, Miami exiles would organize a larger protest flotilla with the objective to reach the coasts of Cuba.

Shift in tone after Carnival's change

No longer separate but still unequal: Cubans can now travel to Cuba on a cruise ship

The power of nonviolent resistance and the challenges that remain

Carnival Cruise Line ship and Cuban-born protester

 Ramon Saul Sanchez, the Democracy Movement and the Cuban American community have achieved a victory in demanding first that Carnival Cruise Line,  a U.S. corporation not be complicit in systematic discrimination against Cubans. The Castro regime has had a long standing policy of  not allowing Cuban born travelers to enter or exit Cuba by boat and Carnival was cooperating with this policy. This sparked protests, boycotts, and lawsuits that led the company to end this practice on April 18, 2016. Advocates of engagement, such as Tim Padgett, were doubtful that the cruise would take place any time soon.

Plane over American Airlines Arena with "Boycott Bigoted Carnival Cruise Line" banner

 In the midst of all this on April 15, 2016 Ramon Saul Sanchez received notice that the United States wanted him to leave the country and that his 2002 application for residency had been denied. Ramon Saul suspects the hand of the Castro dictatorship in his current immigration plight.

Today the Castro regime announced that Cuban-born people would be allowed to travel on the May 1, 2016 cruise and was loosening the overall policy. This is a good thing and an example of the power of active nonviolence to effect positive change.

It is important to remember that the Obama Treasury Department on July 7, 2015 signed off on the Carnival Cruise Line - Castro regime deal that discriminated against an entire class of Americans based on their national origin.

It is also important to remember that although Cuban-born people are now allowed on the boat they are still being discriminated against when compared to their non-Cuban counterparts. The Sun Sentinel Editorial board on April 20, 2016 outlined these discriminatory practices by the Castro regime with some key facts.

• Americans visiting Cuba must present a valid passport and a special tourist card that costs $75.
• Cuban-born Americans who immigrated after January 1971 must purchase a Cuban passport — even though they have renounced their Cuban citizenship and are now U.S. citizens. These passports are valid for six years and cost $375. To keep these passports active, holders must pay $230 every two years.
• Cuban-born Americans who left Cuba before January 1971 may use their U.S. passport, but must apply for an HE-11 visa, which costs $250, lasts only 90 days and can take months to obtain. 

Cuban-born Americans can now get on the boat but they are not treated as equals by the Castro regime because of where they were born.  It matters not if they have a United States passport and the irony is that a regime founded on the claim that it is challenging U.S. imperialism treats those born in Cuba as second class when compared to their American born counterparts.

No longer separate but still unequal.

However this separate and unequal treatment of Cuban-born citizens of the United States by the Castro regime should give rise to a question:  How are Cubans living in the island treated by the dictatorship?

Cubans have been shot and killed by Cuban state security agents as recently as 2015 for trying to leave Cuba. The body count of the Castro dictatorship is still rising. The Florida Straits under the Castro regime has been the equivalent of the Berlin Wall, but with estimates of 100,000 killed by academic scholars.

As Cuban-born citizens of the United States now enjoy their May 1, 2016 cruise across the Florida Straits to Cuba, hopefully they will pause for a moment and say a prayer for all those who perished there seeking freedom.

Why is the United States denying Cuba Democracy activist's residency application after 14 years?

"To us it is suspicious, that in the midst of this and after so many years, we suddenly get this letter and we're concerned whether they're doing this to try to prevent us from exercising free speech with the flotillas in Cuba." - Ramon Saul Sanchez, reaction to NBC6 upon receiving letter denying his application for residency in the United States and asking him to leave the country.

Screen capture from NBC6 interview

Ramon Saul Sanchez applied for permanent residency status in 2002. On the eve of a flotilla in solidarity for 88 Cuban political prisoners with the objective of setting off fireworks, one for each of them, and visible from Havana, Cuba he received a letter from the Miami office of the Department of Homeland Security denying his residency and telling him to leave the United States immediately. He is right to be suspicious of the timing of this letter.

I just received a decision from the US Government that I have to leave the US. It came with a denial of residency applied for in 2002

— Ramon Saul Sanchez (@saulsanchez) April 15, 2016

Last night on Roberto R. Tejera's program Prohibido Callarse (Forbidden to be Silent) Ramon Saul Sanchez was interviewed along with his attorneys. A copy of the envelope in which the letter arrived was handwritten and his name misspelled was shown on air. In addition it was revealed by Roberto Tejera that the Miami office of Homeland Security just last week met with functionaries of the Castro regime's Ministry of the Interior in negotiations of which the content are unknown.

Screen grab from program Prohibido Callarse of envelope denying residency

Ramon Saul Sanchez is a Cuban exile who fled Cuba in the Freedom Flights of 1967 with his family when he was just 12 years old. He has carried out a life long struggle against the Cuban dictatorship, and the entire time that I've known him he has been a practitioner of nonviolence collaborating with the Florida Martin Luther King Institute of Nonviolence.

I've known Ramon Saul Sanchez for over twenty years and consider him a friend. We take different positions in the US - Cuba policy debate, but we do agree on a fundamental level that change in Cuba can best be achieved through nonviolent means. This past week in the radio program Valores Humanos (Human Values) we discussed, in Spanish, the principles and applicability of nonviolence within the Cuba context.

Ramon Saul's reaction to President Obama's December 17, 2014 Cuban policy announcement was that it was an opportunity and that he would keep an open mind. My own view on that day was and remains that: "Regime hardliners have won, thanks to the Obama Administration's actions today. Kidnapping an American and holding him for ransom for five years has paid off.  Moderate elements within the dictatorship, seeking to transition Cuba into a responsible member of the family of nations, will have to continue to remain silent and wait."  

Never thought that moderate elements in the diaspora would also be targeted under this new Cuba policy in an effort to silence them, leaving only administration apologists and corporate interests to repeat talking points.

If this is the beginning of a trend to intimidate and silence dissenting voices, even those that defend much of Obama's Cuba policy but are independent, then the hollowness and mendacity of the claim that this policy is about empowering Cubans will be made more evident.

This also underscores the need for keeping the Cuban Adjustment Act. 

In the mean time friends of freedom should be watching closely what happens later today in Marathon Key, Florida when the Democracy Movement attempts to exercise it's first amendment rights to free speech and assembly with their flotilla.

20 years after the July 13, 1994 "13 de Marzo" Tugboat Massacre: Calls to Action

This page will be updated with new events to pay homage to the victims of the "13 de Marzo" tugboat that was attacked and sunk by agents of the Cuban State on July 13, 1994 causing the deaths of 37 men, women, and children. Twenty years later and those responsible have not been held accountable or the victims compensated in any way. Twenty years without justice. Twenty years of impunity.

Below the events are listed in the chronological order that they were made known to this blog:

 "Lights of Liberty Flotilla in Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the Massacre of the "13 de Marzo" Tugboat Sinking

In the Florida Straits and in Miami the Democracy Movement is organizing a flotilla on Saturday, July 12, 2014 called the "Lights of Liberty Flotilla in Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the Massacre of the "13 de Marzo" tugboat sinking that will leave Key West from the Key West City Bight Marina and go in front of Cuba on Saturday, July 12, 2014 to hold a ceremony in memory of the victims of the massacre and others murdered by Castroism and to launch powerful lights of freedom, which will be seen from Havana and other points of Cuba. Inside Cuba, members of the opposition and the Democracy Movement led in the island by  Jose Diaz Silva and the people in general will draw near to the Malecon and other points on the coast with candles and flowerr to throw them into the sea and to see the "Lights of Freedom" launched by the flotilla.

For more information visit their facebook page or call 305-264-7200.


Twenty minutes of silence for 20 years without justice: Silent Vigil on July 13 at 3:00pm

.
The Free Cuba Foundation has made a global call  for people of good will to hold a twenty minute moment of silence asking: "Please share and encourage friends wherever they are on July 13, 2014 at 3pm to join in a 20 minute moment of silence. Gather in a group or individually and take a photo at the end of the vigil holding up the above image calling for justice or whatever you have at hand. "  On Sunday at 3:00pm members of the Free Cuba Foundation will be gathering at the main fountain at Florida International University (rain or shine) for a twenty minute silent vigil.

For more information on activities in your area visit their facebook page or e-mail them

Mothers and Women Against Repression (MAR) will Remember Victims of the "13 de Marzo" Tugboat Massacre

On Sunday July 13, 2014- the twentieth anniversary of this crime against humanity. - MAR for Cuba will hold a rosary for the victims of the"13 de Marzo" tugboat massacre, on the grounds of the Cuban Memorial Monument, that is located on Coral Way & SW 112 Avenue, at 10 AM, after which a wreath of flowers will be deposited in their memory.

For more information contact  Sylvia G. Iriondo at 305-934-7302 or visit their website.



Collective Action "A light for mine" in tribute to victims of the "13 de Marzo"tugboat and all Cubans who've lost their lives at sea at dusk on July 12, 2014

Estado de Sats and For Another Cuba have called for an international campaign. The collective action “A light for mine” will be a tribute to the victims of the tugboat “13 de Marzo” and all Cubans who have lost their lives at sea, trying to escape a suffocating reality during 54 years.  It is also a tribute to the Cuban family and a call to hope and spiritual rebuilding of our nation.

 
This July 12 on the eve of the anniversary, at  dusk Cubans, anywhere in the world, will light a candle in front of the ocean , a bridge, a lake, a river, on your door, balcony or in the privacy of your home (in this case for the repression that doubles in Cuba on this date) For Cuba's disconnect with the world, Cubans living abroad can help promote this symbolic action inviting relatives and friends on the island to participate and share in turn photos and pictures of the same in the social networks.

Let's light a candle this July 12 to remember the friend, the family member who didn’t make it, the son who never appeared.

La acción colectiva ‘’Una luz por los míos ’’ será un homenaje a las víctimas del remolcador 13 de Marzo y a todos los cubanos que han perdido su vida en el mar, tratando de escapar de una realidad asfixiante durante 54 años. Es también tributo a la familia cubana y un llamado a la esperanza y a la reconstrucción espiritual de nuestra nación.
Este 12 Julio vísperas del aniversario, al anochecer, los cubanos, en cualquier lugar del mundo, prenderán una vela frente al mar, un puente, un lago, un río, en su puerta, balcón o en la intimidad de su hogar ( en este caso por la represión que se redobla en Cuba para esta fecha )
Por la desconexión de Cuba con el mundo, los cubanos que viven fuera pueden ayudar a promover esta acción simbólica invitando a familiares y amigos dentro de la isla a participar y compartir a su vez fotos e imágenes de la misma en las redes sociales.
Encendamos este 12 de Julio una vela para recordar al amigo, al familiar que no llegó, al hijo que nunca apareció.
Una vela como denuncia.
Una vela contra la desmemoria.
Una vela por el futuro.
Una luz por los míos

- See more at: http://www.estadodesats.com/2014/06/una-luz-por-los-mios.html#sthash.JZOcqy3a.dpuf

For more information on the collective action visit their campaign page  or Por Otra Cuba

20th Anniversary of the abominable sinking of the "13 de Marzo" tugboat off the coast of Havana on July 13, 1994

Our Lady of Charity  (La Ermita) is holding a Special mass and vigil: 

We will join together in prayer for the victims and their families and for Liberty and Justice to soon reach Cuba.

Mass: Saturday July 12, 2014
Location: 3609 South Miami Ave Miami, Fl. 33133
Time: 8:00pm

After the Mass united with our brothers in the Island and in different parts of the world we will have a candlelight vigil in their memory in the Sea wall of Our Lady of Charity. 

Don't miss it!

For more information on the Mass and vigil visit their facebook page or official website.

Human Rights Foundation and Cuban Democratic Directorate call for Twenty Minutes of Silence for Twenty Years of Impunity

The Cuban Democratic Directorate (CDD) and the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), have called for a symbolic nonviolent protest action in honor of the twentieth anniversary of the murder of 37 Cuban passengers of the "13 de Marzo" Tugboat, who on July 13, 1994 were killed by agents of the Cuban government for trying to escape the island. The demonstration will take place on July 10 at 12:00 noon outside the headquarters of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Cuba to the United Nations (UN), located at No. 315 Lexington Avenue in New York City. Human rights activists, members of international civil society and Cuban exiles will gather in front of the embassy in order to hold twenty minutes of silence for each of the twenty years that this crime has remained unpunished.

For more information on the silent vigil visit the official announcement in English or Spanish and for additional questions contact: Jamie Hancock, jamie@thehrf.org, 212-246-8486 or
Janisset Rivero, jrrivero1969@gmail.com, 305-220-2713

  
CUBA: Young Leaders Group, Center for a Free Cuba and the Cuban Democratic Directorate Call for Twenty Minutes of Silence for Twenty Years of Impunity

Human rights and civil society organizations have called for a symbolic nonviolent protest action in honor of the twentieth anniversary of the murder of 37 Cuban passengers of the “13 de Marzo” Tugboat, who on July 13, 1994 were killed by agents of the Cuban government for trying to escape the island. The demonstration will take place on July 10 at 12:00 noon outside of the Cuban Interests Section located on 2630 16th Street NW in Washington DC. Human rights activists, members of international civil society and Cuban exiles will gather in front of the embassy in order to hold twenty minutes of silence for each of the twenty years that this crime has remained unpunished.

For more information contact:

Frank Calzon, Center for a Free Cuba 202- 427-3875

Jose Luis Garza, Cuban Democratic Directorate 305-220-2713

Rudy Mayor, U.S. Cuba Democracy PAC’s Young Leaders Group 786-393-9068