Cuban Dies in Struggle Off Florida

The U.S. Coast Guard recovered the body of a woman Saturday who died after an 82-foot cutter rammed a small wooden boat in which she and 11 other Cuban migrants were trying to reach shore off the Florida coast.

The other refugees were rescued.

The drama in the Atlantic Ocean east of Boca Raton, Fla., about 50 miles north of Miami, was the second confrontation in less than two weeks between the Coast Guard and Cubans trying to reach the U.S., and seemed certain to reignite outrage in the exile community concerning the treatment of would-be defectors from the Communist island.

While the body was being recovered, the Coast Guard also found itself busy monitoring a demonstration near Cuba by a group of 72 Cuban Americans aboard several small boats.

Friday’s incident also underscored a steady rise in the number of Cubans who have been trying to enter the U.S. this year, usually aboard vessels piloted by smugglers. More than 950 Cubans have been intercepted at sea since the first of the year, compared with 1,047 picked up in all of 1998.

Those numbers do not include the almost daily landings of Cubans who manage to skirt Coast Guard patrols.

Police in Miami Beach hauled crowd control barricades to the local Coast Guard station, where on June 29, scores of angry exiles blocked a major causeway linking Miami and Miami Beach to protest the treatment of six Cubans who were hit with a high-power water hose and pepper spray as they attempted to reach shore.

“The bridge will remain open,” said Miami Beach police spokesman Bobby Hernandez as a warning to a handful of protesters who gathered Saturday afternoon. “We’re not going to tolerate any civil disobedience or blocking of cars.”

The latest incident at sea began 12 miles off the coast late Friday, when the Coast Guard vessel Point Glass tried to stop a 25-foot boat off the coast of Bimini, Bahamas. After the migrants refused an offer of life jackets, one of those aboard the small boat threatened Coast Guardsmen with a machete while others threw debris, a Coast Guard statement said.

Several Coast Guardsmen in a Point Glass launch then attempted to foul the propeller of the Cubans’ boat with a rope, but the machete-wielding man cut the line, the Coast Guard said. The Coast Guard next tried to flood the engine with water from a fire hose.

When the small boat then crossed in front of the cutter, it was accidentally rammed and quickly sank, Coast Guard officials said.

Eleven people were pulled from the water immediately. The woman’s body was recovered Saturday morning by the cutter Point Barnes.

“This is just an example of how dangerous it is to try to enter the country illegally,” Coast Guard Lt. Ron LaBrec said.

The survivors and the woman’s body were transferred to the cutter Pea Island and were en route to Freeport, Bahamas, and then to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to the Coast Guard.

In a statement apparently designed to head off protest, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said the latest incident was “the direct responsibility of Fidel Castro, whose 40-year dictatorial grip over the Cuban people causes them to throw themselves to the sea in search of the freedom we take for granted.”

The Coast Guard announced an investigation into the incident. Another investigation was ordered after the June 29 action, and eight Coast Guardsmen involved in that confrontation, which was televised live, had been “administratively suspended.”

The demonstration at sea Saturday occurred near the northern coast of Cuba.

Organized by a group called the Democracy Movement, the demonstration just outside Cuban territorial waters was a protest of the Castro government and a commemoration of the 1994 sinking by the Cuban border patrol of a Cuban tugboat that had been hijacked by people attempting to flee the island. About 40 Cubans are believed to have died.

“No problem. Nothing happened. Calm and peaceful,” Coast Guard Petty Officer Stephen Baker said of the protest, adding that at least two cutters and an aircraft were in the area.

But late Saturday, as those demonstrators docked in Key West and heard news of the refugee’s death, many made hasty plans to return to Miami. “We’re in shock. We’re sad and confused,” Ramon Saul Sanchez, president of the Democracy Movement, told TV station WTVJ. “This is getting out of hand.”

Illegal immigration from Cuba has been rising in recent months in response to continuing economic hardship. Unlike the 1994 rafter crisis, when an estimated 30,000 Cubans left the island on makeshift vessels fashioned from inner tubes and foam blocks, most Cubans now arrive after paying smugglers for passage on speedboats.

Two South Florida men are now jailed in Cuba, charged with trying to smuggle 16 people off the island last weekend from the port of Mariel. When the boat sank seven miles offshore, one man drowned, according to a report the Coast Guard received from Cuban authorities.

Cubans who try the crossing know that, as a result of new accords between the U.S. and Cuban governments, those who make it to shore are permitted to stay, while those interdicted at sea--even yards offshore--generally are repatriated.

Thus, the battle between the Coast Guard and Cubans desperate to touch land often is pitched.

Last week, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Thad Allen announced that fire hoses had been used at least two other times in attempts to stop Cubans from reaching the United States.

“The desperation of the refugees and the determination of the Coast Guard to stop them is creating tragic results,” Miami immigration attorney Cheryl Little said. “And until the [U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service] has a look at the new laws that make it harder for people to come here legally, it’s just going to get worse.”