A group of Cuban-Americans is standing by to shuttle aid and hope.
By JOSE CARDENAS
Published April 16, 2007
MIAMI - People make offers, but Enrique Bassas is not interested in
selling his riverfront property in the shadows of the city's skyline.
The Cuban-American businessman has a personal purpose for the three
warehouses and docking space along the Miami River.
In that plan, Bassas and others believe, the Cuban government will begin
to crumble and be unable to provide its citizens with basic necessities.
Bassas and other Cuban-Americans will then leave Florida with boats full
of supplies - and help bring democratic reforms to the island.
Bassas talks about his plans as he stands near the Bimini Breeze, a red
and white ferry that he and others hope will carry 49 people and 20 tons
of cargo to Cuba.
Bassas fled the island in 1962 through Operation Pedro Pan (Peter Pan),
a Catholic program that helped children leave the island. He was 12.
"All my life, I've said, 'When Cuba is free, I'm going.' "
* * *
No one knows whether large numbers of Cuban-Americans like Bassas will
board vessels and sail to Cuba when Fidel Castro dies or at any other point.
The 80-year-old Castro fell ill in July and his brother Raul Castro
remains in control. On Friday, Cuba's foreign minister said Fidel is
recovering from his undisclosed illness.
In the past few months, federal and South Florida authorities have been
preparing for a potential mass migration to and from Cuba. Entering
Cuban territorial waters without U.S. permission is illegal. The
penalty: a 10-year prison term, a $10,000 fine and seizure of vessels.
In an emergency, the Coast Guard could temporarily prohibit vessels
within a security zone around Florida and close marinas and ports.
"We understand that Cuban-Americans desire to provide aid and comfort
and to see other people enjoy the freedoms they enjoy," said U.S. Coast
Guard Lt. Cmdr. Chris O'Neil, who is based in Miami. "That said, there
is a controlled, legal and safe means of migration to the United States."
The first restrictions governing the movement of boats around Florida
were enacted in 1995 after a Cuban government vessel hit an American
boat that entered Cuban waters.
It belonged to Movimiento Democracia - Democracy Movement - an exile
group based in Little Havana.
Bassas has volunteered his warehouses and docking space to Democracia.
In its developing plans, the group has arranged to use a few other
warehouses and boats offered by Cuban-Americans passionate about the
cause. The warehouses sit empty now, but Democracia hopes to use them to
store donations of food, medicine, generators and other supplies.
Group members say the signal to go to Cuba would come when the
government destabilizes - which is not certain, but which they're
banking on - and Cubans need food, medicine and encouragement to uprise.
"When that happens," said Ramon Saul Sanchez, Democracia's leader, "the
exiles need to respond, peacefully, nonviolently, to democracy."
Sanchez, 52, is an outspoken activist. His desire to bring democracy to
Cuba is respected by Cuban-American community leaders and some in local
law enforcement.
When he was 10, Sanchez and a younger brother left Cuba during the
"Freedom Flights." Their father joined them in Miami soon after but the
brothers never saw their mother again. She died in Cuba a few years ago.
In the 1980s Sanchez spent more than four years in federal prison for
refusing to testify in a government investigation of violent anti-Castro
groups.
He said during his time in prison he decided to pursue nonviolent civil
disobedience.
Now he coordinates his exile activities in between his job with a
nonprofit that builds low-income housing.
Sanchez and Democracia are well-known to Coast Guard officials. Sanchez
said officials always call him to find out what his group is planning.
Coast Guard officials say Sanchez calls them, too.
Five years ago, Sanchez was charged with conspiracy to violate Florida's
security zone when a boat he was on went into Cuba's territorial waters.
Sanchez had guided a flotilla to hold a memorial near the spot inside
Cuban territorial waters where Cubans trying to reach Florida on a boat
drowned.
Sanchez said the group had intended to stay in international waters. But
when he saw that the U.S. Coast Guard cutter that normally guarded the
area wasn't there, he said he and two other men spontaneously decided to
go to the exact spot.
Sanchez argued to a federal jury in Key West that he had the right to
return to his homeland. He and the others were found not guilty.
Sanchez enjoys telling the story about how he was not convicted, but
says that now he would try to get permission from federal authorities to
go to Cuba.
More than likely the world will probably learn of Fidel Castro's death
months after Raul Castro has had time to install security measures, said
Andy Gomez, senior fellow at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American
studies at the University of Miami.
A mass migration might occur, he said, if Raul Castro does not do better
at providing services. Regardless, the United States is ready, said
Gomez, who has participated in meetings with law enforcement agencies
preparing for a possible migration.
"I am very much convinced that the efforts among the United States are
very well-coordinated," he said. "More so than they have ever been."
* * *
Democracia members meet in a small office on the second floor of a strip
mall in Little Havana. Pictures of children who have drowned in the
Florida Straits and men who are political prisoners hang on the walls.
The group, in various forms and with different names, has been around
since about 1985. Sanchez estimated thousands of people have
participated in Democracia's activities over the years. Most are
Cuban-Americans who left the island long ago as well as those who have
arrived recently. They are of all ages and most are working class.
"We are a poor movement but rich in our love for Cuba," said Carmen
Valdes, 64.
Twenty people in the executive committee meet weekly to discuss the news
in Cuba, write press releases and plan activities such as vigils. In
their written plans, each person has a role to play in organizing that
eventual voyage.
"When is it okay to go to Cuba?" they discuss. "If the U.S. doesn't let
us go, how do we achieve that anyway?"
To some, the planning might seem obsessive, Sanchez said. But it's born
out of love for country, he said.
Sergio Gonzalez speaks fondly of his hometown of Matanzas, a province
not far from Havana. He said he spent three years as a political
prisoner before he boarded a plane to Florida two years ago as political
refugee.
"I would return," Gonzalez, a 45-year-old electrician, said in Spanish.
"I love my town tremendously. I think this is a great country, but I
want to live in Cuba."
So far, Democracia has three boats docked in spaces donated to the group
by sympathetic community members: the Human Rights, Democracia, and My
Right to Return Home.
And next to the Bimini Breeze, Bassas also keeps a simple, brown metal
boat built in Cuba - a reminder of the Cubans who used it to get to
Florida a few years ago.
"I was anti-Castro when I was 12," Bassas said. "Whatever we have to do
to liberate my people, I'll do it."
[Last modified April 15, 2007, 22:41:47]
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/04/16/Worldandnation/If_Cuba_opens_up__the.shtml
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