Rescued Cubans a Test of U.S. Policy

One day after a small plane with 10 Cubans aboard crashed at sea, exile groups and Cuban American politicians were gearing up Wednesday for a major test of U.S. immigration policy that many here believe was hijacked by Fidel Castro during the struggle over Elian Gonzalez.

Because they were picked up at sea, the nine survivors of the clandestine flight could be returned to Cuba under the terms of a 1994 accord with the communist nation. They also could be allowed to remain in the United States to seek asylum claims. Or, because a stolen government aircraft was involved, they could be prosecuted for air piracy as were three Cubans who crashed off Florida’s coast in 1996.

U.S. officials have not indicated what the fate of the nine Cubans might be. But late Wednesday, U.S. Coast Guard officials announced that eight of the refugees aboard a freighter at sea would be brought to the U.S. The ninth survivor suffered serious injuries in the crash and was airlifted to Key West, Fla., on Tuesday night.

“Let’s not even waste time thinking about air piracy charges,” said Tampa attorney Ralph E. Fernandez, referring to the survivors found clinging to the plane’s wreckage in the Gulf of Mexico, about 60 miles from Cuba’s western tip.

The Cuban government has termed the doomed flight a hijacking. Under the terms of the 1994 accord with Havana, U.S. officials have agreed to consider charges in hijack cases.

One man died Tuesday when the Soviet-built biplane went down, apparently after running out of fuel. Eight of the nine survivors were transferred from the cargo ship Chios Dream to a Coast Guard cutter Wednesday. The ninth survivor, Rodolfo Fuentes, 36, was being treated at a Key West hospital.

“He has a concussion, a big cut on the back of his head and a sore neck,” Dr. David Bannon said.

Fernandez, who successfully defended the three Cubans who faced federal charges of air piracy after a similar 1996 flight from Cuba, said the refugees should be allowed to seek political asylum. Fernandez represents a Hialeah, Fla., man whose two sons were aboard Tuesday’s flight.

His sentiments were echoed by two Cuban-born Congress members, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, both Miami Republicans. They issued a news release Wednesday in which they accused the Clinton administration of attempting to “control the desperation of freedom-seeking Cuban refugees by working with the dictator who oppresses Cuban people.”

They urged Clinton to grant asylum to the survivors.

Similar opinions were expressed by officials of the Cuban-American National Foundation and other exiles active in the failed fight to prevent the return to Cuba of Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old who drifted ashore in an inner tube last November and became the focus of a heated international custody battle.

That struggle ended in June when Elian returned to Cuba, leaving many Cuban Americans angry at the Clinton administration, which had ordered the boy reunited with his father.

On Wednesday, a tropical depression churning up the seas south of Key West delayed efforts to transfer the Cubans to the Coast Guard cutter Courageous, where they will be interviewed by FBI and immigration officials.

Based on a hospital interview with Fuentes, FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said, “At this point it doesn’t appear to be a hijacking, but until we interview them, we can’t be sure.”

Many of the details surrounding the latest flight out of Cuba remain unknown. Hialeah refrigeration mechanic Isidro Puig was still waiting Wednesday to learn whether his sons, Pabel, 28, and Judel, 23, had both survived. He said he had not been able to sleep since receiving a call from Cuba on Tuesday saying his sons were aboard the Antonov An-2.

He said they would be in danger if returned to the island. “They didn’t just take a boat,” he said. “They stole a plane.”

Cubans who reach U.S. soil generally are permitted to stay.

What is known about the flight from Pinar del Rio province--from relatives of the refugees in Cuba and Miami--is that the Puig brothers, along with crop duster pilot Angel Lenin Iglesias Hernandez, 36, and seven others took off from western Cuba early Tuesday. They plunged into the gulf about two hours later. Among the survivors are three men, three women and three children, the youngest 6 years old.

In a statement published Wednesday in the Communist Party newspaper Granma, the Castro government said that soon after daybreak, Iglesias Hernandez ditched his co-pilot, taxied to the far side of the airport in Pinar del Rio and picked up his wife, his son and seven others waiting on the runway.