POLITICS: Cuban Exile Community Gearing Up for ‘Hot’ Summer

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jul 13 1998 (IPS) - The right-wing Cuban exile community in the United States seems to be gearing up for a hot summer of protests and actions against the government of Fidel Castro.

Since the anti-government protests of Aug. 5, 1994 and subsequent exodus of thousands of “rafters” seeking to reach the United States on makeshift watercraft, July and August have been considered the touchiest months in Cuba due to the explosive combination of unbearably hot weather and drought with the effects of the seemingly never-ending economic crisis.

The surprise arrival of a raft on automatic pilot to Cuban shores a week ago and the organisation of a fleet of aircraft Monday indicate that right-wing Cuban-Americans plan to combine their old anti-Castro methods with new tactics.

The raft was part of “a new tactic in our non-violent strategy to demand our right to help the Cuban people,” said a statement issued by the Democracy Movement which sent the raft to Cuba last Monday without prior announcement.

Sailing off course, the raft missed its mark. Instead of running ashore along Havana’s busy “malecon” (boardwalk) and thus potentially drawing the attention of hundreds of Cubans, it landed on a beach on the outskirts of the city, where the shooting of a Cuban film monopolised the attention of passersby.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez said the raft was sent by “a gang of terrorists desperate to provoke us any way they can.”

The Castro administration, meanwhile, kept mum Monday regarding the announcement in Miami, Florida that homage would be paid over international waters near Cuba to the 41 people who drowned when the ’13 de Marzo’ tugboat sank on Jul. 13, 1994.

Local authorities say the tugboat sank when it accidentally crashed into a similar boat chasing it after it was hijacked by 70 people trying to emigrate to the United States.

In the act of homage, privately-owned small airplanes were to fly to the site where according to U.S. sources, Cuban air forces shot down two small aircraft flown by the Miami-based anti-Castro organisation Brothers to the Rescue on Feb. 24, 1996.

Similar actions may be staged in August on the anniversary of the disturbances which led authorities to lift border controls against unauthorised emigration in August 1994, which led tens of thousands of Cubans to set sail towards Florida.

Cuban dissident Luis Posada told the New York Times, meanwhile, that “there will soon be exciting news.”

A year after two small bombs exploded in the Capri and Nacional hotels in downtown Havana, the 70-year-old Cuban-American claimed responsibility over the weekend for organising a wave of attacks against Cuba’s fast-growing tourist industry.

Posadas is accused as one of the people who sabotaged a Cuban Aviation plane, which crashed with 73 people on board.

Admitting that for years he received funds from Jorge Mas Canosa, the most influential anti-Castro activist, who died in November, the 70-year-old dissident told the newspaper that “we used to be called patriots, now they describe us as terrorists.” He added that he was seeking another method to damage the Cuban economy.

The Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF), created by Mas Canosa in 1981, is the most vociferous anti-Castro group in the United States, which claims to use strictly non-violent political methods aimed at weakening the Castro administration.

“Any allegation, implication or suggestion that the members of CANF financed any of the supposed ‘acts of violence’ against the Castro regime are totally false,” states a communique released by the group.

Analysts on the island say that although the influence of the CANF was hurt by the death of its leader, the organisation is still behind a good part of the anti-Castro actions carried out.

“The government is aware that hard times are ahead,” a militant of the governing Communist Party told IPS, pointing to the government’s decision to avoid power cuts during the summer, and the rescheduling of Havana’s carnival, to get underway Jul. 24.

The celebrations, which had been moved to the winter in order to coincide with the tourist season, were scheduled once again for the summer months, as they have been held for decades.

Experts say that eight years into the worst crisis ever to hit Castro’s Cuba, the situation remains tough this year with a new fall in sugar production and agricultural losses caused by bad weather. U.S. Coast Guard sources point to an increase in the number of undocumented Cubans intercepted at sea in June.