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 News from Around the Americas | March 2007 
U.S. Agencies Conduct Drill for Possible Mass Migration from Cuba
 Associated Press
| | Cuba's Vice Minister for Tourism Oscar Gonzalez Rios talks during an interview with Reuters in Havana March 6, 2007. Cuba is not ready for the throngs of American tourists who would be expected to visit the island if a U.S. ban is ever lifted, but it has the time to build new hotels, a senior Cuban official said on Wednesday. (Reuters/Enrique de la Osa) |
Off the south Florida coast: Even as experts played down the threat of a mass exodus from Cuba if Fidel Castro dies, U.S. law enforcement agencies staged mock exercises to be prepared just in case.
During one simulation Thursday, nearly a dozen government vessels maneuvered to stop a boat supposedly carrying armed smugglers headed to Cuba to pick up migrants.
The simulation began hours after a real U.S. Border Patrol mission picked up more than 40 Spanish-speaking migrants who arrived along South Florida beaches. Such arrivals often involve Cubans.
With 85 agencies participating, the exercise was the largest since a 2003 presidential directive created the Homeland Security Task Force Southeast to better police the United States' southeastern borders.
But Cuba experts said they do not expect massive waves of migrants after the death of Castro, who transferred power to his brother Raul last July because of ill health.
In 1980, more than 124,000 people were stopped at sea in a six-month period during the Mariel crisis, which was triggered when Castro said anyone who wanted off the communist island could leave.
"Raul would have to say, 'Anyone who wants to go, go,'" said Jaime Suchliki, a University of Miami professor and the author of "Cuba from Columbus to Castro." Such a move would destabilize the Cuban government and cause another major crisis with the United States. Raul Castro wants neither, Suchliki said.
Also, he said, the region does not have enough vessels to transport half a million people out of Cuba. A more likely scenario would be thousands trying to get into the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "What would the U.S. do in that scenario?" Suchliki asked.
Cuban activist Ramon Saul Sanchez, head of the anti-Castro group Democracy Movement, said the focus on mass migration was overblown.
"If there is a total breakdown of the Cuban government, people will see the possibility of a democracy and freedom much closer — in their own country. They are coming here because of the tyranny," Sanchez said.
Sanchez, who rescued Cuban rafters during a smaller migration crisis in 1994, was concerned the U.S. government might stop exiles from trying to bring humanitarian aid to the island during a change in government.
Border Patrol spokesman Steve McDonald agreed there was no immediate threat of mass migration but stressed the need to train anyway. "We as public officials have an obligation to be prepared," he said.
Thursday's exercise began with a mock emergency call to the sheriff's office reporting that armed boaters were headed to Cuba.
By midmorning, two helicopters and nearly a dozen vessels from the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection and local law enforcement followed the craft supposedly carrying smugglers.
Agents did not try to board the boat because of choppy seas, nor did they attempt to snare or disable it out of concern that doing so would risk giving away law enforcement tactics. |
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