More Cubans take trip to USA, using alternate routes

More Cubans take trip to USA, using alternate routes
Posted 11/15/2006 11:41 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Congressional investigators say the U.S. Agency for
International Development did not properly oversee democracy aid to the
people of Cuba.

Democratic lawmakers who oppose sanctions against Cuba asked the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review the $73 million spent
in the past 10 years to support democratic progress in Cuba.

The GAO found that since 1996, USAID provided 385,000 pounds of
medicine, food and clothing, 23,000 shortwave radios and millions of books.

It also found that some money was used to send Cubans cashmere sweaters,
chocolates, crabmeat and video game equipment and software.

Juan Carlos Acosta, executive director of Accion Democratica Cubana
(Cuban Democratic Action), told The Miami Herald he sent the chocolate
and sweaters. "These people are going hungry. They never get any
chocolate there," Acosta said.

He also said he bought the sweaters on sale. "They (the auditors) think
it's not cold there," Acosta said. "At $30 it's a bargain, because
cashmere is expensive."

Frank Hernandez Trujillo, executive director of Grupo de Apoyo a la
Democracia (Support Group to Democracy), which has received more than $7
million from USAID, said he sent Nintendo games to Cuba.

"That's part of our job, to show the people in Cuba what they could
attain if they were not under that system," he told the Herald.

Dissidents in Havana said they appreciated U.S. support and the aid
"demonstrated the U.S. government commitment to democracy in Cuba," the
GAO said.

The GAO said USAID did not adequately ensure accountability. USAID chief
financial officer Lisa Fiely said her agency has acted to comply with
the recommendations.

From wire reports
By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY
Cubans fleeing their communist homeland are reaching U.S. shores in
increasingly large numbers as more brave the trip and new smuggler
routes make it easier to land.

Traditionally, Cubans have used makeshift boats, rafts and even inner
tubes to ride the currents toward the Florida Keys and Florida's
southeast coast. But the Coast Guard and Border Patrol agents are
heavily focused on the eastern shore, so more smugglers driving
high-speed boats are popping up on Florida's less-populated,
less-patrolled southwestern coast.

"Authorities tied it up so tight near Miami that it's gotten hard for
them to get in," said Capt. Thom Carr of the Marco Island Police
Department located west of Miami. "Because of that, they told us
(Cubans) might start heading this way, and now they are."

Monday, 28 Cubans reached land in Naples. The previous day, 17 landed on
Sanibel Island. And in August, 20 Cubans landed near Marco Island,
according to The News-Press in Fort Myers.

That trend forced the Border Patrol to shift a special unit to southwest
Florida this year to help law enforcement track down the smugglers.

"It's caught us by surprise because we haven't seen that in the past,"
said Steve Cole, a spokesman with the U.S. Attorney's Office Southwest
Florida division.

The shift to the Gulf of Mexico seems obvious to some who live there.

The waterfront along Miami and Fort Lauderdale is stacked with high-rise
buildings that light up the waters and make it easier to spot vessels on
the water. The area also has many fishermen and boaters who help the
Coast Guard identify smugglers gunning for land.

On the other hand, the Gulf Coast is largely a quiet collection of beach
homes where cities have laws restricting the amount of light homes can
emit at night. The laws ensure that hatching sea turtles head to the
water instead of being drawn to city lights.

Mark Sobel, who owns a resort on Sanibel and woke up Sunday to find 17
Cubans on his doorstep, said the combination of those factors results in
a prime setting for nighttime smuggling runs.

"It's quite dark, and that may very well be a haven for them," he said.

New routes account for only part of the recent upswing in Cuban
migration to the USA.

The Department of Homeland Security estimates that 6,356 Cubans reached
U.S. soil in 2005. That's up from 303 in 2003 and marks the highest
influx of Cubans since the Coast Guard picked up more than 37,000 Cubans
in 1994 in the waters between Florida and Cuba.

Alfredo Mesa, director of the Miami-based Cuban American National
Foundation, draws a direct link between the recent upsurge and a
crackdown on dissidents on the island in 2003. Dozens of journalists and
political activists were arrested, convicted and sentenced to decades in
prison on charges of "working with a foreign power to undermine the
government."

"I would make a correlation between this recent wave and the government
increasing their repressive apparatus," Mesa said. "That's at the root
of why people seek freedom."

Lisandro Perez, a Florida International University sociology professor
and past director of the school's Cuban Research Institute, takes a
broader look at explaining the recent surge. The influx in 1994 was
preceded in size only by the Mariel boat lift in 1980, when 125,000
Cubans arrived in Florida.

Perez says that after each massive exodus, islanders settle back down
for a number of years, but the economic pressures and the "oppressive"
regime eventually drive people to the point of fleeing, no matter the
risk or cost. The result, Perez says, is a roughly dozen-year cycle
between each exodus.

"After one of these exoduses, there's a collective breath because people
who wanted to leave have left," Perez said. "But over time, these things
accumulate. There's a pent-up demand in Cuba for migration that tends to
increase with time."

Law enforcement officials say stopping such a mass migration would be
just as hard now as it was during the previous waves.

The U.S. government has a migration policy unique to Cuba. Known as the
"wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, any Cuban who reaches land is generally
granted political asylum while those caught at sea are returned to Cuba.

That places the onus on the Coast Guard and other law enforcement to
stop the floating refugees before reaching shore.

In fiscal year 2005, when more than 6,300 Cuban reached land, the Coast
Guard caught 2,712.

"It's a maritime zone. We can't put a wall up around the United States,"
said Petty Officer James Judge, a spokesman with the Coast Guard's Miami
station. "And we don't have enough Coast Guard assets or other agencies
out there to check every single boat and have a 100% way of stopping
illegal trafficking of anything, including people."
Posted 11/15/2006 11:41 PM ET

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-11-15-cuban-refugees_x.htm