CUBA: Another shady and sinister story
The case of six-year-old Elian Gonzalez, plucked from the Florida straits in November and held against his family's will for eight months until his July return, forced world attention onto US policy towards Cuba, including its Cuban Adjustment Act, which governs immigration between the two countries.
The 1966 law allows Cubans to claim permanent residence in the US — but only once they've made the dangerous, often fatal, trip across the straits. Those who apply for residence at the US Special Interests section in Cuba are routinely refused. As this August 18 editorial from the Cuban Communist Party's daily newspaper, Granma, reveals, Elian isn't the only victim of the Cuban Adjustment Act.
The behaviour of the US authorities is becoming increasingly sly and shadowy with regard to the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act. They refuse to offer any news whatsoever concerning Cuban citizens who lose their lives, suffer accidents, are kidnapped or disappear without a trace as a consequence of this monstrous abomination.
There is a diabolical policy at work, involving the total concealment of information and figures, reiterated disregard and violation of Cuban laws, and flagrant breach of the immigration agreements signed between the two countries. With ever growing frequency and brazenness, speedboats head out from the United States with total impunity towards a previously designated point on our extensive coastline and pick up human cargo at a cost of thousands of dollars a head.
While a few months ago some information did arrive through the wire services, the rigid controls recently imposed by the US authorities have reduced all relevant news to a minimum.
A strange incident recently took place, which we have been piecing together bit by bit through scattered reports issued by the wire services.
On Thursday, August 10, an AP dispatch from Miami reported:
"Today authorities recovered the decomposing corpse of a Hispanic male in the Atlantic, and said that another corpse was dragged off by a shark in an area commonly used by Cubans trying to raft to the United States.
"Several fishermen informed the Coast Guard that they had seen the corpses some 30 kilometres from the Florida keys, said Vicki Neblock of the Coast Guard Service.
"There were no immediate assumptions as to how the corpses got into the water. We found no trace of a boat in the area, said [Becky] Herrin, [a Monroe County Police Department spokesperson]."
Four days then passed until the EFE news agency reported on Tuesday, August 15:
"The human remains found floating off Key West [Florida] are those of two Cuban brothers who were attempting to reach the US coast clandestinely, police confirmed today.
"The corpses, discovered last week in an advanced state of decomposition and with shark bite marks, are those of Juan Carlos, 23, and Alexander Rodriguez Bueno, 20, according to a spokesman from the Monroe County Sheriff's Office."
Also on August 15, the Nuevo Herald published, among other details, that a brother of the two deceased, Omar Rodriguez, a resident of Hialeah, Florida, declared, "'This is very painful, because 22 years ago I lost my brother Carlos (17) the same way ... I have no brothers left in Cuba.
"The family tragedy deeply moved the Cuban community in Miami, which immediately offered the Rodriguez family its cooperation. Armando Gutierrez [the Miami relatives' spokesperson in the Elian case], president of Creative Ideas, attorney Manny Diaz [one of the lawyers representing the kidnapper Lazaro Gonzalez], Radio Mambo, and the 'Humanism Without Borders' Foundation have offered contributions for the funeral services."
As can be seen, the Miami Cuban-American mob, defenders at any cost of the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act, immediately took over the mutilated corpse of one of the many victims of the criminal Act, so as to gleefully wallow in the swamp of politicking and demonstrate how pious their sentiments are.
There have been reports out of Miami about two survivors hospitalised in Florida who mention the death of 10 Cubans in an immigrant smuggling operation. The theory currently circulating is that the speedboat they were on collided with a boat belonging to the US authorities or got into a similar accident with another boat.
Investigations carried out in Cuba have revealed that the two young men lived in the city of Colon, in the province of Matanzas. They have no known criminal records. Their father was on a temporary visit to Miami, where he has a son who arrived in the United States 20 years ago, and another named Eduardo, who emigrated there illegally from Villa Clara in 1998; both were taken in under the Cuban Adjustment Act. The first took part in organising the smuggling operation that led to the two brothers' tragic deaths.
What really happened is still a mystery. It is impossible that the two young men were travelling alone. In smuggling operations like these, the boats are always overcrowded; they normally involve more than 10 people, and sometimes more than 15 or 20. The US authorities know exactly what happened, but they have not said a single word to either the Cuban authorities or the press.
Why don't they explain how and for what reasons these two young men were devoured by sharks near the coast of the United States? This is yet another shady and sinister story about the consequences of the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act and the criminal and increasingly unsustainable US policy against Cuba.
[Abridged.]