Officials Defend Response to Cuban Riots

Federal officials who directed the government’s response to last month’s Cuban prison riots defended their actions Thursday, noting that while millions of dollars’ worth of U.S. property was destroyed, the loss of human life was held to a minimum.

“The bottom line is (that) property took some loss, but human beings did not,” Associate Atty. Gen. Stephen S. Trott said of the uprisings among Cuban inmates at the federal detention center in Oakdale, La., and the U.S. penitentiary in Atlanta.

“We value the loss of people a lot more than property,” Trott told a news conference on the rioting, which resulted in the death of one Cuban inmate and the stabbing of a prison guard.

Still Assessing Damage

Property damage at the Oakdale facility, which opened last year, totaled $14 million, said J. Michael Quinlan, Bureau of Prisons director. He added that officials are just now assessing the extensive damage done to the 85-year-old Atlanta prison.

Meanwhile, Trott acknowledged that Justice Department officials were not aware that State Department and Cuban negotiators were meeting in Mexico City to resurrect a U.S.-Cuban pact that would return Cuban criminals to their homeland--an agreement that subsequently touched off the rioting.

But Quinlan and Trott both contended that even advance notice of the agreement might not have prevented the outbreak of violence. Trott dismissed the suggestion as “sheer speculation.”

The pact was struck late on Nov. 19, and Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III was notified by Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams at 7:50 a.m. the following day, Trott said. Inmates seized the Oakdale facility Nov. 21, while Atlanta prisoners staged their takeover Nov. 23.

‘Could Have Explained’

If immigration and prison officials had had more time, they “could have explained this in detail to the detainees before it became a matter of public record,” Quinlan said. “That’s the only thing I think could have been done better.”

Trott said, meanwhile, that no one at the Justice Department asked State Department officials to hold up on the announcement because “it was clear the cat was out of the bag and could not be contained.”

On the equally controversial decision not to “lock down” Cuban inmates in Atlanta after the violence began in Oakdale, Quinlan assumed responsibility.

Trott said he endorsed Quinlan’s decision against a lock-down after learning that correctional officers in Atlanta had advised that such a move would result in “a guaranteed uprising.”

Take More Hostages

Quinlan also defended the decision to allow the Cubans to take 25 additional hostages by capturing the prison hospital on Nov. 25--two days after violence first broke out at the prison.

Weldon Kennedy, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta office, has said that agents came close to storming the hospital. But Quinlan said the risk to the other 74 hostages in the prison would have increased “to such a level that we allowed them to take the additional hostages.”

Quinlan said that prison officials detected no “significant” sign of unrest at the Atlanta facility before the outbreak of violence, raising the question of whether there had been any effort from outside the penitentiary to stir up trouble.

But Trott declared: “We have been unable to develop any evidence of outside agitation.”