Families remember aid workers killed by Cuba

Posted on Wed, Feb. 22, 2006

BROTHERS TO THE RESCUE ANNIVERSARY
Families remember aid workers killed by Cuba

By OSCAR CORRAL
Miami Herald

HIALEAH, Fla. — A casual visitor might think that Carlos Costa still
lives in his Hialeah house. His 1989 Ford Probe sits on the driveway.
The walls inside the home are lined with his many awards. All his
clothes hang in his bedroom closet. Brochures for a new car remain on
his nightstand.

But the brochures date back to 1996. The Probe is propped up on deflated
tires, its paint dulled by a decade of merciless sunshine. And the
plaques on the wall were mostly awarded posthumously.

Carlos Costa has been dead for 10 years, shot out of the sky along with
three other men by Cuban fighter pilots as they flew unarmed airplanes
on a humanitarian mission, looking for Cuban rafters in 1996. Costa's
parents have preserved his bedroom and his things exactly as they were then.

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Feb. 24 Brothers to the
Rescue incident, when a Cuban MiG fired missiles at two small airplanes
over the Florida Straits, killing three American citizens: Costa, 29;
Armando Alejandre, Jr., 45; Mario de la Peña, 24; and U.S. resident
Pablo Morales, 29.

The shoot-down, which galvanized Miami's Cuban exile community and has
set the tone for U.S.-Cuba relations the last 10 years, still haunts the
family members of the victims. They have immersed themselves in a
quixotic quest for justice, collecting evidence in hopes the U.S.
government will indict Raúl Castro, head of the Cuban armed forces.

Costa's old home serves as a reminder of a young man's life snuffed out
as collateral damage in the acrimonious Cold War between Cuba and the
United States.

''This is all exactly the way it was when he left to go on the plane
ride,'' said Osvaldo Costa as he showed a reporter his son's room.
``These were his things, and we don't want to disrespect them.''

Cuba maintains that the Brothers' unarmed planes violated its
territorial airspace, but the United Nations' International Civil
Aviation Organization concluded the planes were over international
waters and the U.N. Security Council condemned Cuba by a 13-0 vote.

The shoot-down compelled then-President Bill Clinton, whose
administration had been seeking better relations with Cuba, to instead
sign into law an even tighter economic embargo. Relations between the
two countries have remained tense since then.

ENDLESS QUEST

Many of the family members have quit day jobs and now work full-time
seeking justice -- a luxury made possible by a multimillion dollar
lawsuit they won against the Cuban government.

They've had mixed results: A Cuban spy was convicted in U.S. courts of
conspiring to help the Cuban government in the shoot-down. The families
won $93 million in compensation from the civil lawsuit against the Cuban
government, which they collected from Cuban assets that had been dormant
in American banks for decades. And in 2003, the U.S. indicted the two
Cuban pilots who shot the planes and the general who gave the order -- a
largely symbolic gesture because there is no extradition treaty with Cuba.

The families say those legal moves barely scratch the surface. They want
indictments straight up the chain of command, leading to Raúl Castro,
the head of the Cuban military -- and possibly even Fidel Castro.

''We will never forget that these innocent people were killed,'' said
Miriam de la Peña, Mario de la Peña's mother. ``It's now a way of life.
I am obsessed with the truth.''

The exile community has closed ranks around them, naming major streets
in Miami-Dade after the victims, erecting memorials of the shoot-down in
parks and airports, and offering support.

For the families, the last 10 years have been an odyssey of sadness.

Whenever Mirta Costa enters her son's room she picks up the bottle of
Calvin Klein Escape cologne that he left on his desk -- his favorite --
and sprays the room.

''I like to smell my son when I come in here,'' she said. ``It makes me
feel like he's still here.''

Marlene Alejandre-Triana, 28, walked down the aisle alone in her 2003
wedding, led, she said, by the ghost of her father.

''I thought I would be a wreck, but I wasn't,'' she said. ``My dad was
taking me to him [the groom].''

``My dad was essentially my best friend. For me, it's always just about
my father being taken away from me.''

Eva Barbas, the 81-year-old mother of Pablo Morales, said she wants to
die thinking perhaps her son somehow survived and will reappear one day.

''I have hope that God was able to take him out of the plane before they
gave the order to kill them,'' said Barbas. ``That's how I'd like to
die, thinking that he was not pulverized. And that's how I am waiting,
in front of his picture here. He and God give me strength, and I am
waiting for justice from this government.''

Barbas is the only one of the victims' family members to keep in touch
with Jose Basulto, the founder of Brothers to the Rescue, who led the
two other planes the day they were shot down, but got away in his own
plane unscathed.

The relationship between Basulto and the de la Peña, Costa and Alejandre
families soured not long after the shoot-down, as questions arose about
Basulto's role, whether he could have done more to save his fellow
pilots, and whether he should have even been flying near Cuba that day,
given the warning signs around him.

The relationship worsened after those three families received $93
million from the legal case designed to let American citizens sue
governments of terrorist-sponsoring states in U.S. courts.

Basulto, who didn't receive any money in the settlement, said he feels
he has carried the cross in the quest to find truth in the case.

DIFFERENT PRIORITIES

''They took the money and forgot about justice,'' Basulto said of the
other families. ``The old lady [Barbas] and I have carried the cross in
looking for truth and justice. My only moral support has been Eva Barbas.''

Barbas was not part of the civil suit because her son was not a U.S.
citizen. But she didn't accept any money offered to her by the other
families in the settlement. She declined to explain why.

She said she keeps in touch with Basulto because she is eternally
grateful to him. Her son was first spotted at sea by a Brothers to the
Rescue plane when he was making his way across the Florida Straits on a
raft, and she feels they saved his life. Morales joined Brothers shortly
after that.

Brothers to the Rescue, now with a single plane that hasn't flown in two
years, no longer flies missions looking for Cuban migrants at sea.

Miriam de la Peña explains that the civil settlement hurt Cuba where it
hurt most -- the pocketbook. And it was the closest the families have
gotten to seeing the case play out in a U.S. court.

''We felt the indemnity was a triumph of justice,'' she said. ``Money
made it less difficult in our travels and in dedicating all our time to
this.''

Mario de la Peña quit his job as an accountant, and his wife quit her
job in the marketing department of an airline to focus full-time on the
case. They now live in a gated community in Pembroke Pines, surrounded
by family members who also own homes in the neighborhood.

All of the families who collected in the lawsuit said they have also
established foundations and have donated millions of dollars to local
charities, including the local veterans hospital, Jackson Memorial
Hospital, human rights groups, and other local schools, hospitals and
universities. Each family received about $20 million, several family
members said.

Money seems to have brought little solace for the families.

Mirta Costa blames her husband for not convincing her son to stay
grounded the day he was killed. Osvaldo Costa said no one could have
talked their son out of flying.

Carlos Costa's car, his room, his smell, are testaments to the
difficulties of letting go. ''It's like we have him here with us,''
Osvaldo Costa said.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/nation/13932909.htm