Published: 07/07/93
Section: FRONT
Page: 1A
U.S. RIPS CUBA'S 'EXTREME CRUELTY'
PROTESTS 3 KILLINGS NEAR BASE
CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS and DAVID HANCOCK Herald Staff
Writers
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.
The killings are the latest sign that Cuba is resorting to violent means to stop a torrent of desperate people from fleeing the
impoverished island.
"This is the most savage kind of behavior I've ever heard of," said
Robert Gelbard, deputy assistant secretary of state for Latin America. The
United States has no previous record of such activity in Cuba, he added,
calling the practice "even worse than what happened at the Berlin Wall."
The Clinton administration filed a formal protest Monday with the
government of President Fidel Castro, calling on Havana to "immediately cease
these barbaric practices," said a State Department aide.
News of the attacks at Guantanamo comes amid a fierce crackdown by Cuban
authorities on residents who try to leave the country.
On Thursday, Cuban patrols killed three people who tried to swim to a
U.S.-registered speedboat near the town of Cojimar. The captain, a U.S.
citizen and Florida Keys resident, was injured in a hail of bullets. A fifth
man, also from South Florida, escaped.
In separate incidents Friday and Monday, authorities seized boats near
Havana and Santa Cruz del Norte, arresting seven U.S. residents as they sought
to help scores of relatives flee the island.
The men captured Monday were Cuban rafters who had spent only two months
in this country.
"My brother did not want to live without his wife and two children," said
Camilo Bourzac, 28, whose brother Ernesto, 31, is now in jail on the island.
The attacks on swimmers in Guantanamo Bay drew especially sharp
criticism because the refugees might easily have been detained without
violence, U.S. officials said. "The idea of blowing people up when they are
vulnerable underwater is appalling," Gelbard said.
A State Department aide called the use of gaffs, usually used to pull
gamefish into boats, to pull bodies from the water "an act of extreme
cruelty."
According to the U.S. protest, U.S. military guards surveying the bay
have witnessed five separate incidents:
* On June 19 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 at 1:30 p.m., Cuban troops repeated the action, then strafed
the water with machine-gun fire.
* On June 26 at 11 a.m., three patrol boats surrounded a group of
swimmers, lobbing grenades and spraying them with automatic weapons fire. At
least three corpses were lifted out of the water with gaffs.
* On June 27 at 11:30 a.m., guards aboard patrol boats lobbed two
grenades into the water.
* The same day, just before 3 p.m., a patrol boat opened automatic fire
on a group of swimmers, who were later seen being pulled from the water. The
swimmers' status was unknown.
U.S. officials said they did not know how many people had been killed
in the recent Guantanamo incidents, but said at least three could not have
survived the attacks.
The number of Cubans seeking to reach Guantanamo, where they can apply
for political asylum, has surged this year.
The base, which remains the last Western outpost in a Communist nation,
reports that 195 Cubans have reached the facility this year, more than the
total of 152 for all of 1992.
The statistic stands in even greater contrast to the years prior to the
end of the Cold War: in 1988, 21 Cubans reached the Guantanamo base; in 1989,
there were only 12.
About 90 percent of the refugees come by sea, crossing the bay waters in
small craft or by swimming. Fences, guard posts and several strips of
minefields deter those attempting to enter the base by land.
U.S. diplomats who presented the protest note to the Foreign Ministry in
Havana warned that the use of explosives so close to the U.S. base could be
considered a "provocative act." The diplomats also lodged a separate protest
Monday of last Thursday's shooting against the Key West-registered speedboat,
the Midnight Express. They described the act as "an excessive use of force"
against a boat that posed no danger to Cuba.
A Washington source said Tuesday that the boat's pilot, Ricky Hoddinott,
who suffered gunshot wounds to the legs, told a U.S. diplomat that he and Hugo
Portilla, a Cuban exile living in Miami, had traveled to Cuba to pick up five
or six people.
However, when the Midnight Express approached Cojimar, between 50 and 100
people were waiting on the beach. About 30 jumped aboard and the boat began
pulling away. At that point, Cuban Frontier Guards opened fire.
Hoddinott told the official that he raised his hands in surrender but the
guards continued firing. Cuban officials said the troops were firing at the
engines to disable the boat.
The State Department has not determined whether any of the others jailed
in Cuba over the weekend are U.S. citizens. U.S. envoys in Havana have not
visited the others or been asked to do so, officials said.
Cuban officials in Washington defended the crackdown on illegal entries
into Cuban territory.
"We are going to continue picking up all boats that keep arriving in
Cuban waters with the goal of smuggling people," said Jose Luis Ponce,
spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. "We are not going to
allow them to continue violating our sovereignty."
Herald staff writers Cynthia Corzo and Maria Morales contributed to this
report.
WHO'S WHO
* The Cuban government seized a third boat on Sunday. Here is a list of
who was on board:
THIRD BOAT
* Jose Maria Garcia Vega
Status: In Cuban jail.
Residence: Hialeah.
Age: 35
Known relatives: In Hialeah, mother Mercedes Vega. In Cuba, a wife and
two children ages 2 and 3.
* Ernesto Wilfredo Bourzac Nieto
Status: In Cuban jail.
Residence: Hialeah.
Age: 31
Known relatives: In Miami Lakes, brother Camilo Bourzac. In Cuba, wife
Martha, and sons Osvaldo, 2, and Wilfredo, 4.
* Jose Farinas Grova
Status: In Cuban jail.
Residence: Unknown.
Age: Unknown.
Known relatives: Unknown.
FLEEING CUBA
Refugees reaching U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay:
1988 21 1989 12 1990 63 1991 228
1992 152
*1993 195
*As of July 6
Source: U.S. State Department
Cuban rafters picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard:
1988 58
1989 391
1990 497
1991 2,173
1992 2,557
*1993 1,131
*As of July 6
Source: U.S. Coast Guard
© 1996 The Miami Herald.
Knight-Ridder Inc. company.
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