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 News from Around the Americas | August 2005 
US and Cuba Trade Blows Over Boat
 Stephen Gibbs - BBC News
| | The Cuban government said the United States was to blame for the deaths at sea of 31 Cuban migrants. (see story below) |
The governments of Cuba and the US have both blamed each other for the apparent deaths of 31 Cubans believed drowned while trying to leave Cuba on a boat.
Just three people survived after the speedboat reportedly overturned on 16 August, between Cuba and Florida.
The US Coast Guard, who say they are dealing with a surge in Cubans crossing the Florida Straits, called off its search for survivors on Wednesday.
But mystery still surrounds the precise circumstances of the shipwreck.
Automatic asylum
Two women and a man were found drifting at sea by a merchant ship around 50km north of the Cuban coast last week.
They had apparently been in the water for five days after their boat capsized.
They were brought back to Cuba, suffering from severe sunburn and dehydration.
The 31 passengers believed to be on the same speedboat are all now assumed drowned.
Cuba says that the US is responsible. Appearing on state television, President Fidel Castro blamed US immigration policy whereby Cubans who make it to American soil are usually granted automatic asylum.
Dangerous voyage
He described it as an incentive for Cubans to risk their lives in the dangerous voyage.
Cuba is also calling on the American authorities to do more to stop professional people smugglers who charge around $8,000 (£4,440) a head for a fast boat crossing from Cuba to Florida.
But the United States has retorted, saying Cuba is cynically trying to deflect blame from itself for the tragedy.
A strongly-worded statement released by the US Interests Section in Havana says those who died were attempting to flee political repression and government-inflicted impoverishment.
It says that while the US Coast Guard searched for survivors, Cuba did not.
It accuses the Cuban authorities of showing a blatant disregard for their citizens' welfare.
Deaths Blamed On U.S.
Anita Snow - Associated Press
Havana - Cuba on Friday blamed the U.S. government for the deaths of 31 people believed to have perished in the Florida Straits when their overcrowded boat capsized during an apparent smuggling trip to the United States.
"We blame the United States for the deaths of 31 people, almost certain that all have died," Cuba said in an official statement on the front page of the Communist Party daily Granma. "We call again on American authorities to end the contraband of people, organized and financed from that country, and eliminate the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act."
It said the 1966 law, which allows Cubans to apply for permanent residency if they reach U.S. shores, is the "principal stimulus for illegal migration, as well as a gross violation of migration accords signed by Cuba and the United States in September 1994."
The U.S. Interests Section in Havana, the American mission here, rejected the Cuban government's statement, calling it "a cynical attempt to deflect blame from itself."
"Those who died did so fleeing Cuba's political repression and government-inflicted impoverishment," the Interests Section said in a statement distributed to international journalists.
The U.S. Coast Guard on Wednesday suspended the search for the missing Cubans, which began after a merchant vessel rescued three people north of Matanzas, Cuba, three days earlier. No one else was found.
The survivors, two women and a man, were being treated in Cuba for burns and dehydration after five days at sea. The U.S. Interests Section complained in its response Friday that local American diplomats had not been allowed to interview the survivors.
The survivors and Cuban border agents told U.S. officials that 14 people were initially able to cling to the hull of the speedboat after it turned over Aug. 16.
Eleven people eventually drifted away, leaving the three who had life jackets.
The U.S. Coast Guard found an overturned 28-foot boat about 16 miles from the three survivors' location and towed it to Key West.
The boat, designed to carry a maximum of 10 people, is registered in Florida.
Investigators were still trying to determine if the boat was the one used in the smuggling attempt. |
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