Cubans Moved to New Prisons in ‘Mini-Airlift’

Cuban inmates who freed 89 hostages and ended an 11-day takeover early Friday were being moved from the riot-scarred Atlanta Federal Penitentiary only hours later in what a Justice Department official described as a “mini-Berlin airlift.”

Processing of the 1,104 Cubans began around noon Friday and is expected to be completed by about the same time today. From Atlanta, the inmates are being flown to other federal prisons throughout the country.

The Cubans, who had agreed to come out of the 85-year-old prison one by one after settlement of the uprising, were surrendering and being processed at the rate of about 60 an hour, Justice Department spokesman Patrick Korten said.

“It’s first come, first served, y’all come,” Korten said.

No Problems From Holdouts

Federal agents reported no problems as of late Friday from the approximately 200 Cuban inmates who had vigorously opposed the pact ending the prison crisis.

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III arrived in Atlanta Friday evening from Washington and toured the fire-charred prison to survey the destruction.

Meese was accompanied by an entourage of other ranking Justice Department officials, including J. Michael Quinlan, director of the Bureau of Prisons.

At a news conference on the steps of the main entrance, Meese defended the Reagan Administration against criticism of its treatment of Cuban detainees, many of whom have languished in prisons for years in a kind of legal limbo.

“It’s safe to say that this Administration has tried to deal with the Cuban problem--one that was not created by this Administration but one that we inherited,” he said.

He added: “We are hopeful that with the kind of special review process being created at the present time (and) the cautions we have been instituting at other institutions, that we will prevent this (the uprising) from happening elsewhere in the country.”

The Atlanta uprising began Nov. 23 after an agreement was reinstated between the United States and Cuba to deport some of the estimated 3,800 Cuban inmates in U.S. correctional facilities to their native country.

The crisis was brought to a peaceful close shortly after 1 a.m. Friday as federal negotiators and representatives of the Cuban inmates signed an agreement. The pact includes the following provisions:

--An indefinite moratorium on return to Cuba of those who arrived in U.S. in the Mariel boatlift.

--Immunity from prosecution for damage and participation in prison rioting.

--Permission for some inmates to go to a third country willing to accept them.

--Medical treatment for inmates who need it.

--Release, as planned, for detainees approved for parole and with families or sponsors in the U.S.

--Review by July of cases in which detainees were approved for parole but do not have such sponsors.

--Review of all other cases not yet reviewed.

--Identification documents and work permits for parolees.

--No holding of Cuban detainees by the Immigration and Naturalization Service without appropriate charge.

The agreement applies to all Cuban detainees nationwide, including the more than 1,000 who took part in a similar revolt at the federal detention center in Oakdale, La., and who had negotiated their own settlement.

As part of the processing routine at the Atlanta prison, Cuban inmates were being strip-searched, X-rayed to detect any weapons hidden in their bodies and issued new uniforms.

“We want to make sure they’re not bringing anything out that they shouldn’t be taking with them,” Korten said.

The inmates were then shackled at the wrists and ankles and put on buses to be carried to Dobbins Air Force Base for further transfer.

Stanley E. Morris, director of the U.S. Marshals Service, which is transporting the inmates to other facilities, characterized the flights with the inmates aboard as “mini-Berlin airlifts.”

The processing was taking place under heavy guard in a trailer outside the east gate of the prison.

Will Inspect Prison

After all inmates have surrendered, Korten said, federal agents will go in to inspect the prison and search for any holdouts. They also will collect evidence for a possible investigation and check out claims by some inmates that one or more Cubans perished in the fires.

Across the street from the prison, where many wives of the inmates had kept vigil during the rebellion and had celebrated when the tense standoff ended, only a handful remained Friday morning. Many of the press tents had been folded up, and city workers were removing the orange-colored barricades along the sidewalk.

The mood among the inmates’ wives had quickly turned to anxiety and depression as they wondered where their husbands would be sent and how they could afford to follow them.

“It’s going to be real hard for me to be able to move again,” said Jacqueline Carreras, 30, who has four young children and lives on welfare. She came to Atlanta eight months ago from Seattle to be near her husband, Alberto.

Denies Setting Precedent

At a news conference in Washington before he left for Atlanta, Meese rejected suggestions that the Justice Department had set a dangerous precedent by yielding to the inmates’ demands.

“I don’t think we yielded to the demands of hostage-takers in this case,” he said. “I don’t think we violated our principles, and I think this will become clear” as details of the agreement are unfolded.

Meese also was asked whether he believed the government was obliged to live up to an agreement made under duress.

“There are lots of reasons . . . why this agreement was proper and why this agreement comports essentially to what we consider fair treatment in this case,” he said. “So I can assure you . . . we will be honoring the terms of that agreement.”

Advocates for the Cuban detainees, however, are not so sanguine that the government will keep that pledge.

“Our experience is that the government does the minimum for the Cubans,” said Steven Donziger, spokesman for the suburban Atlanta-based Coalition to Support the Cuban Detainees. “It never even went an extra inch for these guys.”

He added: “If the government does the minimum in this case, the Cubans are going to gain very, very little.”

Donziger also said that monitoring the government’s actions toward the Cubans will be more difficult now that the inmates are being scattered in prisons across the nation.

“It’s going to be a logistical nightmare,” he said. “It was certainly much easier when the bulk of them were in Oakdale and Atlanta.”

Staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington contributed to this story.