By Pam McLennan
Epoch Times Staff Jul 13, 2009
OTTAWA—To commemorate the 15-year anniversary of the infamous Tugboat
Massacre, Juan Carlos brought a makeshift raft to Parliament Hill on
Monday similar to the one he had used on the open sea to escape from
Cuba in 1994.
Carlos is a "rafter," one of thousands who fled Cuba in 1994 after Fidel
Castro declared that people were free to leave the country without
reprisal. He used a combination of innertubes and wood to cobble a raft
that would take him to the United States and escape what he saw as
Castro's oppressive regime.
Speaking on the Hill, Carlos, a resident of Guelph, said that at 17 he
was badly beaten for using a public washroom that was designated for use
by tourists only.
"From that day on I have been very angry. I wonder how Canadians would
feel if they were beaten for using a public washroom in their own
country but which foreign people are allowed to use. I won't welcome
tourism in my country until the Castro government is over. I would like
to tell the Canadian people that the only thing you are doing by going
to resorts in Cuba is hurting the Cuban people."
Carlos languished in Guantanamo Bay along with 32,000 other expatriate
Cubans, awaiting their fate while Castro and then-president Bill Clinton
took nearly a year to negotiate a revision to the Cuban Adjustment Act,
the outcome of which was the "dry foot wet foot" policy of May 2, 1995.
This policy states that Cubans who flee to the U.S. will be accepted if
they make it to dry land. If they are stopped while on the waters
between the U.S. and Cuba they will be sent back.
Eventually Carlos was sent to Spain. He subsequently lived in the U.S.
and then Canada, where he married a Canadian woman.
Tugboat Massacre
In the Tugboat Massacre that occurred on July 13, 1994, 41 people died,
nine of whom were children, the youngest a 5-month-old baby called
Hellen Martinez Enriquez.
The small wooden vessel left the port of Havana and was about seven
miles out to sea when it was ambushed by four state-owned boats. The
larger metal-hulled boats encircled the tug. Two of the boats stopped
the tug and repeatedly rammed its hull until it split and began taking
on water.
In the meantime the other two boats, which were equipped with
firefighting hoses, were spraying the people on deck, driving many
overboard and others to flee to the cargo hold.
Witnesses claim that the four boats then repeatedly drove around the
sinking vessel at high speed to create a whirlpool that sucked those
floundering in the sea under the water and to cause the tug to sink even
faster, while continuing to spray both the people and the boat with
high-powered jets of water.
No attempts were made to help the people on board the tug or to rescue
those who were in the water despite the presence of a government Coast
Guard cutter. Only when a Greek liner happened upon the scene did the
Coast Guard start to pull people from the sea.
The old tug, named 13 de Marzo (13 March), sank and in the end, of the
72 people that were on board, only 31 survived. No bodies were returned
to their families as the Cuban government refused to recover the
victims' bodies.
The incident has been recounted by the survivors and investigated by
numerous agencies including Amnesty International and the UN Rapporteur
on Cuba.
The Cuban government claimed that the tugboat sank because of an
accident that occurred as the state-owned boats tried to stop a fleeing
stolen vessel, and that there was no deliberate attempt to sink the tug.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights however, saw it differently.
"The Cuban State is responsible for violating the right to life of the
41 people who were shipwrecked and perished as a result of the sinking
of the tug 13 de Marzo … for violating the personal integrity of the 31
persons who survived the sinking of the tug … as a consequence of the
emotional trauma it caused," stated a report by the commission.
"The Cuban State is responsible for violating the right to freedom of
movement and the right to a fair trial of the 72 people who attempted to
flee Cuba…"
'Canada has huge leverage'
Asdrúbal Caner, a representative of the Social Democratic Party of Cuba,
is also a rafter. It took Caner four days during stormy weather to cross
from Santiago to Guantanamo Bay in August 1994. Without food or water
for most of the trip, he weighed just 45 kg (100 pounds) when the U.S
rescued him.
Caner says that while about 800,000 Canadian tourists visit Cuba each
year, tourism doesn't benefit the people of Cuba much. The money mainly
goes to the Cuban government to support the armed regime and keep the
people oppressed.
One family of expat Cubans attending the event were from Switzerland.
Miguel Figuerola, his wife Susana Gonzalez, and their son Dennis
Figuerola left Cuba when Miguel got a job with the U.N.
They said the Canadian government is in some ways complicit in the
difficult life that Cubans live, as Canada is Cuba's second highest
trading partner and has invested in Cuban businesses including Sherrit
International (nickel and oil).
Despite the fact that Canadian businesses create jobs for Cubans,
Figuerola says that the people aren't paid directly by the companies.
The monies are collected and distributed by the Castro government, which
use it to support the army.
Toronto resident Lazaro Gonzalez's father was a rafter as well. His
father was sentenced to 28 years in jail in the 1960s for speaking
publicly against the communist regime. After 18 years in prison Castro
freed all prisoners and allowed them to leave the country. His father
boarded a raft and was never heard from again.
Gonzalez said he was fired from his job as a professor of economics at
Havana University when it was discovered that his father had been a
political dissident.
Nelson sol Taylor, the Ottawa representative of the Cuban Canadian
Foundation, said that Canada is the biggest investor in Cuba and he
would like to hear the Canadian government publicly denounce the Castro
regime as murderers and thugs, and to have a similar policy of sanctions
against the Cuban government much like the U.S. has.
"We think that Canada is a very important country to change what is
happening in Cuba, as Canada has huge leverage that they could apply to
Cuba. People ask why is Canada not doing anything," he said.
"We would like Canada to publicly state support for the Cuban
dissidents. Some are in jail as prisoners of conscience, recognized by
AI, and we would like Canada to officially and publicly recognize the
Cuban Opposition movement in the same way that Burmese democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi is supported. That would really encourage the Cuban
people."
As for Carlos, he said he plans to keep returning to the Hill each year
on the anniversary of the Tugboat Massacre.
"My plan is to do this every year at this time until the Canadian
government allows us to testify in front of the Canadian parliament and
say what we have witnessed as survivors of the genocide the Cuban
government has been committing for the past 50 years."
Epoch Times - Cuban 'rafters' Remember Tugboat Massacre (13 July 2009)
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/19571/
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