Brothers Among Boldest of Exile Groups

The dream of wresting control of Cuba from Fidel Castro has animated a long line of Cuban American exiles in Miami, starting with members of the brigade that met its destruction at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

In today’s Miami, few are more audacious than those who call themselves Brothers to the Rescue. The group got its start five years ago by patrolling the Florida Straits in small private planes, dropping food and fresh water to Cubans who had risked their lives in rafts to escape Castro’s island. The fliers reported the rafts’ locations to the U.S. Coast Guard, which then arranged pickups.

When U.S.-Cuban relations thawed last year, the Clinton administration said would-be immigrants would be sent back to Cuba. But Brothers to the Rescue found a new way to pull Castro’s chain: Its members flew directly over Havana and leafleted the city with anti-Castro tracts.

If they were trying to provoke an international incident, as some have assumed, they got more than they bargained for. Four of their members may have been added to the long list of Cubans martyred to the anti-Castro cause when a Cuban air force MIG-29 blew two of their single-engine Cessnas out of the sky Saturday.

Only a few observers suggested that the Brothers longed for martyrdom.

“This was not a suicide mission; it is a tragedy in the classic sense,” said Max Castro, a sociologist at the University of Miami’s North-South Center. “You could see where this was heading.”

Indeed, no one seemed surprised.

“I myself thought this would occur sooner or later, knowing Fidel Castro’s personality and his drive to retain power at all costs,” said Antonio Jorge, a professor of international relations at Florida International University.

“I know there are some on the far-left fringe who think Brothers’ actions were provocative,” added Jorge. “But these missions were peaceful resistance to Castro.”

Jose Basulto, 55, the Bay of Pigs veteran and Miami home builder who founded Brothers to the Rescue, has become a high-profile, outspoken member of Miami’s Cuban community.

Basulto was flying a third Brothers plane Saturday, the only one that survived the encounter with the Cuban air force. Whether or not the three planes had penetrated Cuban airspace--and Basulto insisted they had not--he has flown directly over Havana on previous occasions, and the Federal Aviation Administration has begun an investigation.

Among the four men missing and presumed dead was Armando Alejandre Jr., 45, a construction manager for Dade County. Alejandre last year established his anti-Castro credentials by attempting to jump over the fence around the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. He broke his leg and was arrested for his trouble.

Eduardo Gamarra, a Bolivian-born professor in Miami, said he doubted that his friend Alejandre, who left his wife and an 18-year-old daughter, or any of his comrades wanted to risk their lives. “I don’t think any of these guys thought the Cuban government would shoot,” he said.

“But there is probably a martyr in every Cuban American in Miami. Few are willing to act on it. He was.”

So was Mario de la Pena, 24, a native of New Jersey who had never set foot in his parents’ homeland. He piloted Alejandre’s plane.

In the second plane was pilot Carlos Costa, 29, who had buzzed Havana in July when a Cuban gunboat rammed an exile yacht offshore. With him was Pablo Morales, 28, who came to the United States in 1992 after he was spotted on a raft in the middle of the Gulf Stream by a Brothers plane.

Msgr. Bryan Walsh, a Roman Catholic priest who has worked with Cuban refugees in Miami for more than 30 years, said he hopes “this act of violence will not result in other acts of violence.”

But almost as he spoke, Basulto told a news conference: “We are going to continue confronting the Castro government. You have our pledge. We have more planes.”

Times researcher Anna M. Virtue contributed to this story.