Cuban Coast Guard shoots 2 suspected migrant smugglers from US

Posted on Thu, Apr. 06, 2006

Cuban Coast Guard shoots 2 suspected migrant smugglers from U.S.
ANITA SNOW
Associated Press

HAVANA - The Cuban Coast Guard shot two suspected migrant smugglers from
the United States, killing one, when they and a third man refused orders
to halt their speed boat as it neared the island, official media said
Thursday.

The Communist Party daily Granma said the confrontation occurred
Wednesday morning near Cuba's southern coast in the western province of
Pinar del Rio.

The Coast Guard official in charge ordered officers to open fire after
the three-man crew aboard the 40-foot boat failed to stop as ordered and
launched "violent sudden attacks" on a Coast Guard vessel, damaging the
craft and almost causing it to overturn, the report said.

It said that two men aboard the U.S.-based boat were wounded by gunfire
and taken to a local hospital, where one died Wednesday afternoon, the
report said.

Cuban authorities said the identity of the dead man was not immediately
known because he did not have any documents and the other two men were
not cooperating.

The other two men carried U.S. passports identifying them as Rafael Mesa
Farinas and Rosendo Salgado Castro. It was unclear which of those two
was wounded, or how seriously.

A spokesman for the U.S. Interests Section in Havana said American
authorities were investigating the incident but had not yet released any
information.

The shooting death of a suspected migrant smuggler by Cuban authorities
was unusual. Most violence during migration attempts has occurred in
confrontations between Cuban authorities and would-be migrants who
hijacked boats or planes.

Cuban authorities blamed Wednesday's confrontation on U.S. migration
policies they say encourage its citizens to undertake risky journeys to
get to the United States.

But Ninoska Perez Castellon, spokeswoman for the Miami-based Cuban
Liberty Council, blamed the island's communist government, accusing it
of tolerating migrant smuggling.

"The Cuban government has the authority to let them go in and out," she
said. "For anybody to believe that all those people are coming in and
out without the government getting a cut is ridiculous."

But she also blamed the smugglers, saying they often bring 30 or 40
people on a boat made for six, charging them around $10,000 each.

"That's why you see these terrible accidents," she said. "In the exile
community, people are desperate to bring in their family here."

The passports of two suspected smugglers involved in Wednesday's
confrontation showed they recently visited the Mexican southeastern
state of Quintana Roo, where Cuban authorities believe they had planned
to take a boatload of illegal migrants.

Cuban authorities later temporarily took into custody 39 people they
believe had been scheduled to leave the island on the speedboat: 20 men,
12 women and seven children.

After giving statements to authorities, most were later sent home.
Several, however, remained in custody pending further questioning.

The speed boat, named the "Tiburon Azul," or "Blue Shark" in English, is
registered to an American man of Cuban origin named John Roberto and has
traveled to Cuba numerous times on migrant smuggling trips in the past,
many of them through Mexico, the report said.

"The events in the pre-dawn hours of yesterday in the waters south of
Pinar del Rio confirm the irresponsible, criminal and aggressive
character of United States policy toward Cuba, especial the deliberate
use of the issue of migration against the Revolution," Granma said in
the front page report.

It went on to criticize as "cynical" the Cuban Adjustment Act, a 1966
law that grants U.S. residency to most Cubans one year after reaching
American soil. That privilege does not apply to apply to immigrants from
most other nations.

Under current American policy, most would-be Cuban migrants the U.S.
Coast Guard picks up at sea are returned to the island, but most who
reach American soil are allowed to stay.

Mexico is among several routes migrant smugglers use to get Cuban
migrants into the United States, and Quintana Roo, home to the Caribbean
resorts of Cancun, Cozumel and Isla Mujeres, has become an increasingly
popular transshipment point.

From there, the migrants travel to the U.S. border with Mexico, where
they identify themselves as Cubans to American officials and are often
allowed to stay.

Associated Press writer Laura Wides-Munoz in Miami contributed to this
report.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14278486.htm