Cuban protest targets cruises

Posted on Sun, Mar. 05, 2006

Cuban protest targets cruises
Anti-Castro demonstrators congregated on Watson Island to protest the
Bahamian government's treatment of detained migrants and call for a
tourism boycott.
BY LAURA MORALES
llmorales@MiamiHerald.com

Members of Cuban exile groups gathered for a protest Saturday on Watson
Island to flash signs and blare earsplitting trailer truck horns.

They had unlikely targets: rows of cruise ships.

They wanted passengers on Bahamas-bound cruise ships to know they say
the island mistreats Cubans who land -- and are detained -- on the
island chain.

Across the channel, the trucks displayed large banners: ''Fair Treatment
of All Migrants in the Bahamas'' and ``Bahamas, Be Beautiful Again.
Respect Human Rights.''

The exile groups were Movimiento Democracia and Agenda: Cuba, whose
members Saturday advocated for a tourist boycott of the Bahamas.

''We are trying to send a message to the Bahamian government,'' said
Tomás Rodriguez, of Agenda: Cuba. ``They need to resolve the issue of
all the migrants in their detention center.''

One ship was Carnival's Imagination. As it made its way up Government
Cut, passengers flocked to the top deck at the sound of the truck horns.
Some waved, others captured the moment on video.

The incarceration of Cuban dentists David Gonzalez-Mejias and Marialys
Darias-Mesa and the recent alleged beating of a Miami television
reporter by a detention center guard have cast attention on the
treatment of Cubans held in the Bahamas.

''We are here because we don't want any more injustices done to our
people,'' said Bay of Pigs veteran Enrique Díaz Ané.

Republican U.S. representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Connie Mack
recently said they will ask the federal government to pressure Bahamian
authorities to release the dentists and improve treatment of migrants.

The Bahamian government has said that it will follow its own migration
accords with Cuba to resolve the matters.

Gus García, Democracia's legal coordinator, said the protest was against
only Bahamian policy on migrants, not the people of the island chain.

''As long as these abuses continue, we will continue our protest,''
Rodriguez said. ``We will only stop when we see some results.''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/14020156.htm