Shots at Cuban boat off Fla. criticized

Shots at Cuban boat off Fla. criticized

HAVANA -- A leading Cuban rights group criticized the U.S. Coast Guard
on Monday for firing shots at the engine of a boat overcrowded with
U.S.-bound migrants during a confrontation that killed one woman and
injured several other people off the Florida Coast.

"We cannot understand why they were firing with weapons of war against a
small civilian craft," Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban Commission on Human
Rights and Reconciliation said in a statement distributed to
international news media here.

A woman relatives identified as 24-year-old Anei Machado Gonzalez died
of blunt force trauma consistent with striking her head on the boat
during the Sunday confrontation off the Florida coast, according to
preliminary autopsy results.

No one was struck by the shots fired to disable the engine. The U.S.
Coast Guard said it opened fire after the migrant-filled speedboat
ignored orders to stop and repeatedly tried to ram their vessels.

"The violence of this interception led to this tragedy and the case
should be investigated," the rights commission said.

Cuban Coast Guard officials in April said that they shot a suspected
migrant smuggler off the island coast's when he refused their orders to
stop. Two other people on the craft were wounded.

"The governments of Cuba and the United States must take all measures to
stop shooting against small unarmed boats," the rights commission said.

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060711/BREAKINGNEWS/60711001