CUBA: Despite Rumours, Gov’t Rules out New Rafters’ Exodus

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Jul 3 2002 (IPS) - The Cuban government ruled out Wednesday any easing of controls against illegal emigration that would lead to another exodus of “rafters” to the United States and a further rise in tension with that country.

“No one should let themselves be fooled,” stated a communique issued by the government of Fidel Castro, who – without mentioning names – blamed radio stations that operate in the United States for spreading the rumours that have been circulating in this socialist island nation since late last week.

“They say (U.S. President George W.) Bush is going to send in a fleet to pick up anyone who makes it to the 12-mile limit,” Alexis León, 31, who was hoping to take advantage of what he saw as an opportunity to make it to the United States, told IPS.

León tried twice in the past five years to cross the Florida strait in homemade watercraft built with a group of friends.

“There were five of us,” he said. “The first time, we sank right off the coast, and were picked up by Cuban border guards. The second time, in 2000, we were intercepted by U.S. coast guards and brought back to Cuba. Maybe now we’ll have better luck.”

The government warned that all foreign vessels that entered Cuban waters to pick up would-be emigrants would be seized and their crew tried “with all the severity of the law.”

Rumours of a new exodus to Miami, like the 1994 “rafters’ crisis” during which 30,000 Cubans tried to make the dangerous 90- mile crossing to Florida on rickety watercraft, have been flying around since the middle of last year.

The rumours gained credibility when Castro warned on Jun 26 that Cuba might cancel the migration agreements signed with the United States in 1994 and 1995.

The accords guarantee an orderly and safe flow of legal emigration from Cuba, based on a U.S. pledge to issue 20,000 visas a year, and its agreement to repatriate all Cubans intercepted in the attempt to illegally enter U.S. territory.

Castro even warned that he might shut down the U.S. Interests Section in Havana if its staff continued to engage in activities that he described as “humiliating disrespect for the norms that govern the conduct of diplomats.”

For example, U.S. diplomats distributed hundreds of shortwave radios on the island to enable people to listen to the U.S. government’s Radio Marti, which is broadcast by fervently anti- Castro Cuban exiles.

“It is something that we don’t want, because it would amount to a sad setback in the few areas in which relations between the two countries have moved forward,” said the president in a speech before parliament.

Washington has not directly responded to Castro’s late June remarks, although U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told an international news agency that it would be “irresponsible” to call off the migration agreements.

Diplomatic ties between Cuba and the United States were broken off in 1961. Wshington prohibited any kind of trade or contact until 1977, when the government of Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) agreed with Castro to open interests sections in Havana and Washington.

An extreme measure like the closing of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana had not been considered by Castro, at least not publicly, even at the worst moments of tension in the 1990s.

Meanwhile, analysts said an easing of controls on illegal departures from the island was unlikely, due to the negative international image that an exodus of Cubans would cause just a few days after the government reported that 99 percent of voters backed an amendment that made socialism an “irrevocable” part of the Cuban constitution.

On the contrary, border guard troops have stepped up their activity in the past few days, and are expected to do so even further after the official communique released Wednesday, which was aimed at preventing another round of mass departures.

Brothers to the Rescue, an anti-Castro organisation based in Miami, the mecca of the Cuban exile community, said Tuesday that it did not want to foment or contribute to any massive outflow of Cubans.

The president of Brothers to the Rescue, José Basulto, said a heavy inflow of Cuban immigrants would create major problems for the government and the people of the United States at a time when the country is facing a substantial threat from international terrorism.

Analysts in Havana also dismissed the possibility of a rupture of the migration accords with the United States. Antonio Aja, assistant director of the University of Havana’s Centre of Research on International Migration, told IPS that the agreements remain “a necessary point of bilateral contact.”

“Between 1995 and late last year, more than 144,000 people have benefited by the migration accords,” he pointed out.

He also said neither Havana nor the United States were interested in a repeat of the “Mariel boatlift,” when 125,000 Cubans were allowed to head towards the United States in 1980, or the 1994 “rafters’ crisis”.

For the United States, a massive inflow of Cuban immigrants would run against the grain of the stricter migration and national security controls adopted since the Sep 11 terrorist attacks on Washington and New York.

Aja admitted that Cuba’s severe economic recession continues to fuel the desire of many Cubans to emigrate, and that in the past few months, there has been a rise in the number of clandestine departures by sea.

However, he believed Castro’s statements last week should be seen in the context of “a heightening of the tension” between the two countries, which he said was unlikely, however, to lead to any break in the migration accords – in first place, “for humanitarian reasons,” and secondly, because “if the possibility of orderly emigration exists, why opt for disorder?”

The researcher estimated that 800,000 people would leave this Caribbean nation of 11 million if they could.

According to U.S. government statistics, 2,400 undocumented Cubans reached the shores of southern Florida between October 2000 and October 2001, and 742 have arrived since then.