Placing a massacre of Cuban civilians into context

Originally published in The PanAm Post blog The Canal on July 7, 2013

“In Cuba there are missing and it is known who has disappeared them, the latter are heroes for the government….There are more than 20 murdered children waiting to be claimed and mothers and grandmothers who were not allowed to look for them when they were killed off the coast of Havana” – Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, El Nuevo Herald, March 18, 2005*

 Cuba is being subjected to a totalitarian dictatorship that for over half a century has erased and rewritten inconvenient chapters of its history. As was the case with the Soviet Union under Stalin the scale of the crimes can not be accurately measured during the life of the dictator, but occasionally state security and the propaganda machinery unable to cover up a particular crime offers an insight into the regime’s underlying nature. The events of July 13, 1994 is one such instance. 

What happened
 The July 13, 1994 massacre that took place just six miles off the Cuban coastline and claimed 37 lives, the majority women and children is one instance where the true nature of the Cuban government was exposed. Three Cuban families seeking a better life away from the dictatorship sought passage aboard the Cuban tugboat the “13 de Marzo.” The captain of the tug was part of the group wanting to leave. The tugboat left Havana on Wednesday, July 13, 1994 in the early morning hours.

Six miles from the Cuban coast line the “13 de Marzo”tugboat was confronted by three other tugboats . Amnesty International in their 1997 investigation reported that the vessels which attacked the “13 de Marzo” were named and identified as belonging to the Ministry of Transport:

“…Polargo 2”, “Polargo 3″ and “Polargo 5″. According to survivors, “Polargo 5″ was the vessel which acted most aggressively towards them. The fourth vessel which followed along behind them and which appeared to be directing operations was believed to belong to the Cuban Coast Guard, which is part of the Ministry of the Interior.”

Despite the “13 de Marzo” tugboat attempting to surrender and the mothers holding up their children begging for mercy the other tugboats continued to ram them and use high pressure hoses to blast the passengers overboard. Following this they began to circle the wreckage with the aim of creating a whirlpool affect to ensure that any survivors would drown. Their plans were dashed however when a Greek trawler passing by witnessed the massacre. It was then and only then that the attack was suspended and the survivors picked up. 

International Investigation
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.

 On October 16, 1996 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) released Report Nº 47/96 Case 11.436 Victims of the Tugboat “13 de Marzo” vs. Cuba. Among the conclusions reached in the investigation was that:

The Cuban State is responsible for violating the right to life (Article 1 of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man) of the 41 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. The persons who died that morning are: Leonardo Notario Góngora, Marta Tacoronte Vega, Caridad Leyva Tacoronte, Yausel Eugenio Pérez Tacoronte, Mayulis Méndez Tacoronte, Odalys Muñoz García, Pilar Almanza Romero, Yaser Perodín Almanza, Manuel Sánchez Callol, Juliana Enriquez Carrasana, Helen Martínez Enríquez, Reynaldo Marrero, Joel García Suárez, Juan Mario Gutiérrez García, Ernesto Alfonso Joureiro, Amado Gonzáles Raices, Lázaro Borges Priel, Liset Alvarez Guerra, Yisel Borges Alvarez , Guillermo Cruz Martínez, Fidelio Ramel Prieto-Hernández, Rosa María Alcalde Preig, Yaltamira Anaya Carrasco, José Carlos Nicole Anaya, María Carrasco Anaya, Julia Caridad Ruiz Blanco, Angel René Abreu Ruiz, Jorge Arquímides Lebrijio Flores, Eduardo Suárez Esquivel, Elicer Suárez Plascencia, Omar Rodríguez Suárez, Miralis Fernández Rodríguez, Cindy Rodríguez Fernández, José Gregorio Balmaceda Castillo, Rigoberto Feut Gonzáles, Midalis Sanabria Cabrera, and four other victims who could not be identified.

 The IACHR made three recommendations:

1) that the Cuban State conduct an exhaustive investigation in order to identify, prosecute and punish those responsible for sinking the tug “13 de Marzo”
2) that the Cuban state recover the sunken boat and the remains of the victims and hand them over to their relatives and
3) that the Cuban State pay fair compensation to the surviving victims and to the families of the dead for physical and nonphysical damages, including emotional distress.

 Placing the July 13, 1994 massacre into context
The state security apparatus in Cuba was trained by the East German intelligence service, known as the Stasi, the most brutal security apparatus behind the Iron Curtain rivaling the Soviet KGB in brutality and surpassing it in its espionage capabilities. It is also important to note that Fidel Castro visited the Berlin Wall and paid homage to the soldiers who were extrajudicially killing Germans trying to make it across to West Germany in 1972:

“The comrades of the party and the citizens of socialist Berlin have told us with great satisfaction about the activity of the border troops, speaking with great admiration for you and for your services.”

The orders issued to these border guards by the East German government were simple and without mercy:

“It is your duty to use your combat … skills in such a way as to overcome the cunning of the border breacher, to challenge or liquidate him in order to thwart the planned border breach… Don’t hesitate to use your weapon even when border breaches happen with women and children, which traitors have often exploited in the past.”

 The actions of Cuban border patrols on July 13, 1994, and instances such as the June 1993 use of machine gun fire and hand grenades on defenseless swimmers trying to reach the U.S. Guantanamo Naval base that drew an official protest from the United States government at the time, are not aberrations. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident, talking to Cuban exiles randomly in Miami have heard accounts of others who died in the same manner trying to flee the island over the past half century. It just happened to be one of the few times when it was properly documented and an official complaint lodged.

The men responsible for the July 13, 1994 tugboat massacre where given medals and described as heroes by Fidel Castro. This should not be a surprise when considering that he had praised the East German border guards that carried out orders to kill men, women, and children whose sole “crime” was trying to reach freedom on the other side of the Berlin Wall. 

New information that has emerged
Fifteen years after the events of July 13, 1994 I had the opportunity to sit down with Jorge García who lost 14 family members that day. Jorge learned the names of those who took part in the massacre of the “13 de Marzo” tugboat.

The one who was the most aggressive, the bloodiest and oversaw the operation was Jesús González Machín, captain of the “Polargo 5″ that sunk the “13 de Marzo” tugboat. He actually had the opportunity to meet him and photograph him. Although Machín denied having sunk the “13 de Marzo,” he said something of tremendous legal importance: “I didn’t work that day. They called me at 6 p.m. that there was an operation at the port.”

That is to say that from 6 p.m. on July 12, 1994, at the Port of Havana, Cuban state security was there to direct the operations of the sinking of the “13 de Marzo.” They knew what was going to happen. It was a double crime. They could have stopped or impeded the departure of the tugboat. They followed orders and sank the boat.

Following the massacre, family members imagined that the bodies would be returned to them. The government organized Rapid Response Brigades and blocked anyone from visiting the home. The dictatorship had persons with weapons to intimidate. Jorge García was detained and interrogated on several occasions. The longest detention was 15 days. His daughter, María Victoria García, was one of three of his family who survived the massacre and spoke out:

They tried on several occasions to kill my daughter, because she was the first to speak out and contradict the regime’s official narrative.

He and his daughter are now exiled in Miami. Jorge maintains an archive of information and has interviewed the survivors of the massacre and the families of the victims. He has also confirmed that the number killed that day was 37. The initial investigation had placed the number at 41 with four unknown but has now been confirmed to be the 37 listed above.

 The continuing need for justice
 Although it has been 19 years the bodies of the victims have not been returned to the families and the men responsible have not had to answer for their crimes before any tribunal. Nevertheless, as has been seen in Argentina, Ethiopia, and Cambodia justice may be delayed but still applied against those who commit human rights atrocities. The victims of the July 13, 1994 tugboat massacre still need justice.

* Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas was killed i n Cuba on July 22, 2012 following a suspicious car crash.

The Cuban Regime's International Impact on Human Rights in China

“Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres”. ["Tell me with whom you walk, and I will tell you who you are."] - Spanish proverb


When dealing with human rights and Cuba there is an obvious focus on the systematic human rights violations inside of Cuba that often leads to overlooking the impact of the regime in multinational and international institutions. In the past this blog has reported on some of the many countries the Castro regime has made an impact in: Angola, Argentina, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and Venezuela now China is added to this list.



The communist regime in Cuba has been a staunch ally of the Chinese communists at international forums such as the United Nations Human Rights Council and both regimes engage in a mutual admiration society and make a mockery of human rights concerns. For example when the Chinese communists released a report attacking the human rights record of the United States Fidel Castro praised the Chinese regime's report while decrying "Washington's hypocrisy." International media covers this kind of "news" as a Tibetan monastery remains under siege by Chinese military forces and hundreds of monks have been detained and sent for "reeducation" while others were beaten to death during a military assault on the monastery. Not surprisingly the Castro brothers' dictatorship has nothing critical to say about the Chinese occupation of Tibet nor of its treatment of the Tibetans. Nor is it surprising that China and Cuba are two of the top four countries in the world when it comes to restricting internet use.

Nevertheless, when these regime's start recommending that the other be tougher on their human rights defenders a new low has been reached that has managed to surprise some. For example, China underwent its first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on February 9, 2009. During this session the Cuban Ambassador, Mr. Juan Antonio Fernández Palacios, after a short, ideologically biased and rambling run through of Chinese history then recommended that the Chinese regime repress human rights defenders in China.



The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint program of the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) declared in a formal statement on February 13, 2009 that it was:

all the more concerned that China accepted a recommendation formulated by Cuba, according to which China should “maintain, in strict compliance of law, to avoid the impunity for people who are qualifying themselves as human rights defenders with the objective of attacking the interests of the state and the people of China”.
"This recommendation is unacceptable, and sends a very bad signal to Chinese human rights defenders who are strongly repressed on a daily basis due to their peaceful human rights activities, and as such is a flagrant violation of the provisions of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998", said Eric Sottas, OMCT Secretary General.

One month later on March 13, 2009 the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders spoke before the 10th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Item 3 stating:

We believe in this regard that it is of utmost importance that such recommendations comply with the Declaration on human rights defenders and other international human rights standards and instruments. We were outraged by the recommendation formulated by Cuba on the occasion of the UPR of China, that encourages repression against human rights defenders. We insist on the fact that such recommendations shall not be taken into account in outcome reports. In the event that recommendations of this nature are adopted, they will not only contradict the recommendations of other mechanisms, such as treaty bodies and special procedures but also internationally recognized human rights standards.

The Chinese rejected serious recommendations to improve its human rights standards and accepted the Cuban regime's recommendation to increase repression on human rights defenders. This is another example, of many, in which the Cuban dictatorship is a counterproductive actor in international affairs and in the case of the people of China and Tibet the Cuban regime's statements and actions have left them less protected.


There are real life consequences to what takes place at these international forums as are taking place now at the Kirti Monastery that erupted into a crisis requiring the world's attention due to the loss of life and brutality visited on nonviolent people. The Tibetan government in exile reports on events in occupied Tibet:

The Chinese government has sealed off Kirti Monastery by deploying armed security forces to crackdown on Tibetans following the monk's suicide on 16 March. Since then a large group of Tibetans stood guard at the Kirti monastery to prevent the Chinese police from taking away monks for detention. The Tibetans gathered at the monastery, who were mostly elders, were severely beaten by the police as they attempted to resist the police from taking away around 300 monks in around 10 military trucks on the night of 21 April. The crowd was dispersed by the police who indulged in indiscriminate beating. Two elderly Tibetans, Dongko, aged 60, and Sherkyi, 65, died due to severe beating. The latest report we have says that 300 monks have been removed from the monastery and are detained at unknown locations.

The Chinese regime's response is to ban foreigners from visiting the affected area (to avoid eyewitness testimony) on the atrocities committed by the "Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). Meanwhile Tibetans cry out for international attention and solidarity. In addition to the attack on the monastery Chinese Christians were detained to prevent them from celebrating Easter this past week.

The Cuban regime's participation in covering up human rights abuses in China along with its calls for increased repression on human rights defenders make it complicit with the Chinese regime in these crimes against the Tibetan and Chinese people.

"Ver con calma un crimen es cometerlo."
["To calmly witness a crime is to commit it."] - José Martí