High-speed escape

Cuba
High-speed escape

Jun 12th 2008 | MIAMI
From The Economist print edition
Greater optimism at home has not stopped the exodus to the United States

WITH Fidel Castro formally out of office and some signs of greater
optimism among Cuba's citizens about the possibility of social and
economic change, you might expect fewer people to risk their lives by
seeking to escape the island by sea.

Not so, apparently. The number of Cubans trying to smuggle their way
into America is the highest it has been for more than a decade. The
United States Coast Guard says that over the past eight months 3,846
Cubans have made the trip—a 7.5% increase on last year's already high
figure for the same period. Of these, around 40% (1,577) were
intercepted at sea, an increase of more than a quarter. In the whole of
the last (American) financial year, ending in September, 7,693 sought to
flee to the United States, more than half of whom managed to avoid
detection. But 3,197 were intercepted at sea, the highest number since
the "rafter crisis" of 1994, when 37,000 were caught.

"There is sort of a silent exodus taking place from Cuba," says Ramón
Saul Sánchez, leader of Democracy Movement, a Miami-based Cuban advocacy
group. Despite the transition of power from Fidel Castro to his brother,
Raúl, many Cubans have little expectation of big changes on the island.
American restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba have added to
their sense of desperation.

Yet the spike in the number of Cubans seeking to leave may have as much
to do with an increase in organised smuggling as with economic despair.
In the past, Cubans made the crossing—just over 100 miles (160km)
between Havana and Key West—in home-made rafts. These days, they travel
in speed boats hired in Miami by relatives paying up to $10,000 a head
for the trip.

Cubans have also discovered a new route to freedom, crossing the sea to
Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, then making their way overland to the border
with the United States. Under American law, these so-called "wet-foot,
dry-foot" Cubans are allowed to stay if they make it to their objective.
Those picked up at sea are nearly always repatriated.

Until recently, the trafficking of people was virtually ignored by
American officials. But prosecutors in Miami have now begun to get
tough. Over the past two months, 41 Cuban-Americans have been charged
with attempting to smuggle hundreds of Cubans into Florida by boat.
Investigators started to pay greater attention after several drownings
cast an ugly spotlight on the trade. The Coast Guard says that 36 Cubans
died at sea in April alone. In one incident last November, as many as 40
people from a single village in Cuba, including a dozen children, are
believed to have died. Rear-Admiral David Kunkel, the Coast Guard's
district commander, recently appealed to Cuban exiles to "put the
criminals who engage in human smuggling out of business by not using them".

In an attempt to stem the flow, America's State Department has
accelerated its visa procedures for Cubans seeking to be reunited
legally with their families in the United States. But the escalation in
smuggling has had one positive outcome: American and Cuban coast-guard
officials are now co-operating to try to stop the trade—one of the very
few areas where the two countries do work together. "It really is in no
one's interest to let this continue," said one American official.

http://www.economist.com/world/la/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11546110