In the predawn darkness of July 13, 1994, seventy-two desperate
Cubans – old and young, male and female – sneaked aboard a decrepit, but
seaworthy tugboat in Havana Harbor, and set off for the U.S. and the
prospect of freedom.
Let Jack Nicholson label their captive homeland “paradise.” Let
Bonnie Raitt rasp out her ditty
calling it a “happy little island.” Let Ted Turner hail their
slave-master as a “helluva guy.” Let Democratic party boss Frank
Mankiewics proclaim Castro “one of the most charming men I’ve ever met.”
Let Michael Moore hail the glories of
Cuba’s
healthcare. Let Barbara Walters praise: “you have brought great
health to your country.” But the people boarding the tug knew better.
And for
a simple reason: the
cruel
hand of fate had slated
them to live under Fidel Castro and Che Guevara’s handiwork.
The lumbering craft cleared the harbor, and five foot waves started
buffeting the tug. The men sprung to action as the impromptu crew, while
mothers, sisters and aunts hushed the terrified children, some as young
as one. Turning back was out of the question.
A few miles into the turbulent sea, 30-year-old Maria Garcia felt
someone tugging her sleeve. She looked down and it was her 10-year-old
son, Juan. “Mami, look!” and he pointed behind them toward shore.
“What’s those lights?”
“Looks like a boat following us, son,” she stuttered while stroking his hair. “Calm down, mi hijo (my
son). Try to sleep. When you wake up, we’ll be with our cousins in a
free country. Don’t worry.” In fact, Maria suspected the lights belonged
to Castro patrol boats coming out to intercept them.
In seconds, the patrol boats were alongside the tug – Whack! – with
its steel prow, the closest patrol boat rammed the back of the tug.
People were knocked around the deck like bowling pins. But it looked
like an accident, right? Rough seas and all. Could happen to anyone,
right?
Hey, watch it!” a man yelled as he rubbed the lump on his forehead.
“We have women and children aboard!” Women held up their squalling
children to get the point across. If they’d only known.
This gave the gallant Castroites nice targets for their water cannon.
Whoosh! The water cannon was
zeroed and the trigger yanked. The water blast shot into the tug, swept
the deck, and mowed the escapees down, slamming some against bulkheads,
and blowing others off the deck into the five-foot waves.
“Mi Hijo! Mi Hijo!” Maria screamed, as the water jet slammed
into her, ripping half the clothes off her body and ripping Juan’s arm
from her grasp. “Juanito! Juanito!” She fumbled frantically around her,
still blinded by the water blast. Juan had gone spinning across the deck
and now clung desperately to the tug’s railing 10 feet behind Maria, as
huge waves lapped his legs.
Whack! Another of the steel patrol boats turned sharply and
rammed the tug from the other side. Then – crack! another from the
front. Whack! The one from behind slammed the vessel again. The tug was
surrounded. It was obvious now: The ramming was no accident — and in Cuba, you don’t do something like
this without strict orders from way above.
“We have women and children aboard!” The men yelled. “We’ll turn
around! Ok?!”
Whack! The Castroites answered the plea by ramming them again. And
this time, the blow from the steel prow was followed by a sharp snapping
sound from the wooden tug. In seconds, the tug started coming apart and
sinking. Muffled yells and cries came from below. It turns out the
women and children who had scrambled into the hold for safety after the
first whack had in fact scrambled into a watery tomb.
With the boat coming apart and the water rushing in around them, some
got death grips on their children, and managed to scramble or swim out.
But not all. The roar from the water cannons and the din from the boat engines muffled most of the
screams, but all around people were screaming, coughing, gagging and
sinking.
Fortunately, a Greek freighter bound for Havana had happened upon the
scene of slaughter and sped to the rescue. Only then did one of the
Castro boats throw out some life preservers on ropes, and start hauling
people in, pretending they’d been doing it all along.
Maria Garcia lost her son, Juanito, her husband, brother, sister, two
uncles, and three cousins in the maritime massacre. In all, 43 people
drowned, 11 of them children. Carlos Anaya was 3 when he drowned, Yisel
Alvarez was 4. Helen Martinez was 6 months old.
And all this death and horror to flee from a nation that experienced
net
immigration throughout the 20th century, where boats and planes
brought in
many more people than they took out – except on
vacation. (Despite what you saw in
The
Godfather, actually, in 1950
, more Cubans vacationed in the
U.S. than Americans in Cuba, as befit a nation with a bigger middle
class than Switzerland.)
Thirty one people were finally plucked from the seas and hauled back
to Cuba where all were jailed or put under house arrest. They hadn’t
been through enough, you see. However, a few later escaped Cuba on rafts
and reached Miami. Hence we have Maria Garcia’s gut-wrenching
testimony, which was presented to the UN, the OAS and Amnesty
International, who all filed “complaints,” reports, and “protests.”
One may wonder whether the massacre was caused by a rogue operation
of crazed deviants. No government could possibly condone, much less
directly order such a thing.
Wrong. Nothing is random in Stalinist Cuba. One of the
gallant water-cannon gunners was even decorated (personally) by Castro.
Perhaps for expert marksmanship. A three-year old child presents a
pretty small target. A six-month old
baby, an even smaller one. Magnificent job defending the glorious
revolution, companero.
HUMBERTO FONTOVA
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Cuban dissident
Guillermo Fariñas, whose long hunger strike helped pressure the Cuban
government into releasing political prisoners, left the hospital, not
fully recovered, but ready to resume his life of opposition.
Three weeks after ending his 135-day fast, Fariñas said in a telphone interview he felt "diminished" and still cannot walk well.
