The Flotilla Grows

Defying fierce winds, thousands of refugees take the freedom ride to Florida

At first Washington talked of deporting the newcomers and ordered fines levied against the boats' skippers. Still they came. Then nature intervened, with 60-m.p.h. winds whipping the Florida Straits into a maelstrom worthy of Melville. Still they came, landing daily at Key West in sturdy shrimp boats, speedy pleasure cruisers, leaky outboards. The flotilla that had begun setting off from Florlida two weeks ago to pick up refugees at the Cuban port of Mariel had more than tripled in size by last week. Declaring the exodus an "unprecedented emergency," President Carter called off a scheduled U.S. Navy exercise near Guantanamo Naval Base and ordered the diversion of 34 ships to help the U.S. Coast Guard assist scores of boats in distress. "If they could build a bridge that would connect Havana and Miami, there would be no one left in Cuba!" hooted one middle-aged arrival. Or almost no one, to hear the refugees. Said Jose Antonio Aras, 77: "President Fidel Castro will be the only one there."

Not all Cubans who shared those sympathies were able to sail away without opposition, as was violently demonstrated in Havana. Some 500 Cubans, mostly former political prisoners, began clamoring for U.S. visas outside the offices of the U.S. Interest Section, which represents the U.S. on the island in the absence of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Suddenly several buses pulled up, and scores of their country men jumped out. Swinging tire irons, pipes and chains, they into the throng as police stood by and watched. After 20 minutes, more police arrived and the fighting stopped, but not before a dozen were injured and some 400 of the visa seekers had fled into the U.S. offices.

The clash followed a May Day rally at which Fidel Castro urged 1 million cheering supporters to bid "good riddance" to the "lumpen" leaving Cuba. Though the attackers had come in buses belonging to the CUBAN INSTITUTE FOR FRIENDSHIP AMONG PEOPLE, there was little doubt about who was behind the assault. "It was clearly permitted, if not sponsored, by the Cuban government," charged Thomas Reston, U.S. State Department spokesman. Though Havana promised safe transport home to the squatters, most decided to remain encamped there.

By week's end the ragtag regatta had carried nearly 8,000 Cuban refugees to the U.S., thus bringing the total number ferried by the sealift so far to well over 10,000. They come to escape impoverishment, political repression and Castro, and to shape new lives for themselves in the U.S. The sudden influx forced Florida Governor Bob Graham to declare a state of emergency in Monroe and Dade counties--the area stretching from Key West to Miami--and led the U.S. Government to start airlifting refugees from Key West to Eglin Air Force Base in northwest Florida. There a makeshift tent city that will eventually be capable of housing 10,000 refugees was under construction.

Much of the confusion can be traced to the Cuban Premier, who has regularly changed the rules and played to his own interests throughout the world's latest refugee flight. When nearly 11,000 Cubans crammed into the Peruvian embassy compound in Havana last month seeking political asylum, Castro promised salidas (exit visas) to all those who could gain permission from other countries to emigrate there. But after an airlift organized by Costa Rica had evacuated 678 of the 6,250 would-be exiles accepted by eight nations, including the U.S., Castro suddenly canceled the flights. Havana instead proclaimed that all the embassy refugees could leave by way of Mariel, a grimy industrial port 27 miles west of Havana; to lure boats from south Florida's large Cuban exile community to pick up the refugees, it was also announced that any Cuban could leave the island if relatives in the U.S. came to claim him.

The offer stunned Washington, which had agreed to take its complement of 3,500 embassy refugees with the understanding that the Immigration and Naturalization Service could screen them before allowing them into the U.S. Suddenly thousands were landing illegally in Florida with no entry visas in hand. Washington first implored boat-owners not to head for Mariel. When that failed to deter the flotilla, the Government hinted it might accept only the first 3,500, whether embassy refugees or not, and deport the rest. The threat was correctly seen as an empty one since the U.S. has routinely granted asylum to Cuban refugees since Castro came to power in 1959.

Washington next decided to admit the refugees "conditionally" for 60 days, after which the INS would decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not to grant political asylum; except for those definitely proved to be dangerous criminals, all will almost certainly be permitted to stay. The State Department also announced that owners of the refugee boats could be liable for a $1,000 fine for each refugee ferried. In addition, it warned, their craft could be seized and held until the penalties were paid. But even this policy was enforced unevenly: though written notices representing millions in fines were handed out to dozens of captains by week's end, only three vessels were seized. Skippers remained undeterred.

The penalties had also been imposed in an attempt to discourage U.S. boat crews, many of them hopeless land lubbers, from risking their lives on the high seas. Indeed, when a fierce storm with near hurricane-force winds lashed the straits last week a major disaster threatened the main body of the flotilla. Nine boats sank and nine boats capsized. Coast Guard cutters plucked 14 people from the 8-ft. waves and towed 65 vessels back to Key West. It was considered miraculous that only four people drowned.

Despite the obstacles, the flotilla continued to grow. Cuban Americans with relatives on the island converged on Key West from Ohio, California and New York, only to find that their thousands of dollars in cash were still not enough to meet the exorbitant prices. Skippers demanded $1,000 or more to ferry each refugee; charter fees for shrimp boats went as high as $50,000.

An even greater disappointment was in store for many of those who finally reached Mariel. Havana assigned only a handful of officials to log in the arriving boats and another handful to collect each craft's list of desired relatives. Typically, a boat had to wait several days for a first encounter with a government launch, and days more for its passengers.

When their turn finally came, many crews received a shock: they had expected to take back all the relatives they had asked for, but were told that 60%, later 70%, of their passengers would have to be refugees from the Peruvian embassy.

Suspicions rose about who, exactly, was being allowed to depart. Rumors persisted that the Cuban Premier was releasing common criminals from jail and ordering them on the boats, partly to prove his charge that those fleeing his island are "lumpens and antisocials." Crowed Radio Havana: "The U.S. has always wanted to pick the best brains of our people. Let them also pick up the bums."

The majority who disembarked at Key West, however, appeared to be ordinary Cubans. "Pretty much like the rest of society in America, some hardworking, some lazy," said INS District Director Raymond Morris. Upon arrival many broke into cheers of "iLibertad!" and "iViva Presidente Carter!" before being herded into buses and cars for the four-hour drive to the refugee processing center in Miami's Tamiami Park. "I am very happy," said Jorge Vidal, 22, a printer who arrived with his pregnant wife and eleven-month-old son. "We used to hear stories about the U.S. and sometimes on the radio we even heard the voices of America. This is a very good land."

Why have so many thousands of Cubans fled their native land as soon as they got the opportunity? As they waited in line at Tamiami the refugees talked about their reasons for leaving. Most described a combination of factors: the island's spreading poverty, made worse in the past year by tobacco-and sugar-crop failures; outright political repression; a gray and stultifying atmosphere.

Specifically, many complained of severe rationing and the lack of jobs. "I have had my ration card for ten years, and always the amount has been the same," said Lazara Basart, who left with her husband, a government driver, and her two children. "Three-quarters of a pound of meat per person every nine days. Five pounds of rice per month. Many times we went hungry." Marveled another at the refugee center: "There are more pages of want ads in newspapers here in Miami than there are pages in all of Granma [Havana's Communist Party paper]."

Others felt the real sting of political repression. Ordinary citizens are forced to play informer, Roger Arencibia, 27, a Havana dental assistant, said resentfully. "My brother-in-law was laid off from his factory and could not get another job," said Caridad Carrodeguas, a bookkeeper from Batabano. "The factory managers want good revolutionaries. You can't complain, you can't speak out against anything openly."

Underlying all these complaints, however, was a general weariness with a way of life that has gone on demanding sacrifice with few rewards. "I just couldn't live there any more," said Aldo Montenegro, 39, a Havana cook. "They kill ambition. One has to live in misery." Concurred Lazaro Bijande, 18, a Havana student: "I was born in the revolution. They taught me that all this is good. In the end, it's all a fraud. Cuba doesn't advance."

It was clear from the disparate motives that the flood of refugees is not likely to slow down soon. Cuban officials privately estimate that 250,000 of Cuba's 9.7 million would like to leave the island; others put the figure at 1 million and more. As for the man who started the flood, he apparently has no intention of turning it off. "We don't want them, we don't need them," thundered Castro of the refugees at a May Day rally in Havana last week.. He claimed that he had opened Mariel to teach the U.S. a lesson for welcoming as heroes those who hijacked boats from Cuba in order to reach U.S. shores. Chortled Castro: "We really have an open road now. Let us see how they can close it."

Indeed that is a challenge the Carter Administration is still scrambling to meet. "We want to stop the flow because Castro cannot be allowed to dictate who comes into the U.S.," said one State Department official. "On the other hand, we have a tradition of accepting people from Cuba and it's highly unlikely that we would send people back."

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