Uncivilized conduct

Posted on Wed, Apr. 12, 2006

Uncivilized conduct
OUR OPINION: DEMAND FULL ACCOUNTING OF SMUGGLERS' SHOOTING

The men who make clandestine trips in fast boats to Cuba to smuggle
desperate people into this country take serious risks with their lives
and the lives of their human cargo. Often, the trips are ''successful,''
that is, the smugglers and their passengers manage to land safely in the
United States or Mexico. Sometimes, though, the trips go horribly awry,
as happened last week when the Cuban Border Guard opened fire on a boat
carrying three men, two of them U.S. citizens.

The fact that one man was killed and another injured in the
confrontation says much about the nature of the Cuban government. Faced
with a similar circumstance, a civilized country would have sought first
a peaceful interception of the boat, using warning shots or other
nonviolent means. That's what the U.S. Coast Guard did last October when
it chased a go-fast boat 52 miles south of Key West that was found to
have 29 Cubans aboard. The Coast Guard cast an ''entangling device'' or
net that stopped the boat, allowing them peaceably to take the smugglers
into custody.

In fact, international law requires that nonviolent means be used first
and that lethal force be used as a last resort. The incident occurred in
Cuban territorial waters, and the few available details of what
happened, have thus far come from the communist regime, which typically
tries to exploit such incidents by blaming the United States or Cubans
in Miami.

A U.S. State Department spokesman rightly called the incident ''deeply
disturbing.'' In the meantime, U.S. officials should demand a full
accounting of what happened, access to the two survivors and to see the
body of the man who was killed. Smuggling is illegal and cannot be
condoned, but a government that shoots first and asks questions later is
a pariah among civilized nations.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/editorial/14321037.htm