Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant (23 page)
Read Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant Online
Authors: Humberto Fontova
Tags: #Politics, #Non-Fiction
One of the steel boats turned sharply and rammed the tug from the side. The other rammed it from the front. The one from behind slammed them again. The tug was surrounded. The ramming was no accident. Castro’s patrol boats were acting on orders.
“What are you doing?” the enraged men yelled from the battered tug. “
Cobardes!
We have women and children aboard! We’ll turn around! Okay?”
Cobardes!
We have women and children aboard! We’ll turn around! Okay?”
The Castroites answered the plea by ramming them again. This time, the blow from the steel prow was followed by a sharp snapping sound from the wooden tug. In seconds the tug started coming apart and started to sink. Muffled yells and cries came from below. The women and children who scrambled into the hold for safety were in a watery tomb. With the boat coming apart, the water rushed in around them. Some were able to grab their children and swim out. But not all.
Soon water filled the hold completely. “I was completely blind!” recalls Maria. “I was completely underwater, fumbling around, grabbing for anything near me, trying to find Juan. I was submerged, so my screams were like those in a nightmare where you scream in terror but nothing comes out.... Soon I grabbed an arm and I felt some arms and legs wrap around my neck and chest from behind me. Just then we popped to the surface. It was little Juan gripping my body from behind!”
“Hold tight,
mi hijo
! Hold tight!” Maria yelled between coughing up sea water. “Don’t let go!” Juan was coughing and gagging too, but still gripping his mother tightly, almost choking her.
mi hijo
! Hold tight!” Maria yelled between coughing up sea water. “Don’t let go!” Juan was coughing and gagging too, but still gripping his mother tightly, almost choking her.
Maria was in the middle of a maelstrom. Her husband was out there too, somewhere. She was treading water frantically with her last reserves of strength when she felt a strong hand grab her. She focused through the spray and saw about ten people hanging onto an ice chest. A man reached out from the group and pulled her toward them just as a blast from the water cannon hit them again. By now all three tugs had turned on their water cannons.
The Castro boats started circling the sinking tug—faster, faster, gunning the engines to a horrendous clattering roar, and creating a huge whirlpool in the process. “People were screaming all around me,” recalls Maria. “A woman on the ice chest had her baby daughter ripped from her arms by the blast and she was screaming, screaming, screaming!”
The hysterical woman let go of the ice chest and went under in search of her child—neither one reappeared from the swirling waters.
The roar from the water cannons, the racket from the boat engines creating the deadly whirlpool—this hellish din muffled most of the screams.
Soon Maria was ripped from the ice chest by another blast from the water cannon. “Juanito hadn’t been holding on very tightly any more,” she sobbed in testimony. “He’d been coughing real bad, coughing up mouthfuls of sea water. Finally I felt him go limp. Then the blast hit us. I went under again and came up screaming. ‘Grab Juan! Grab my boy!
Por favor!
’ But everyone was scrambling, everyone was under the blast of the gun. My son! My son!”
Por favor!
’ But everyone was scrambling, everyone was under the blast of the gun. My son! My son!”
This time, ten-year-old Juan never resurfaced. Maria Garcia lost her son, husband, brother, sister, two uncles, and three cousins in the maritime massacre.
In all, forty-three people drowned, eleven of them children. Carlos Anaya was three when he drowned, Yisel Alvarez four, Helen Martinez six months. Fortunately, a Greek freighter bound for Havana happened upon the slaughter and sped in to the rescue. Only then did one of the Castro boats throw out some life preservers on ropes and start hauling people in.
Thirty-one survivors were finally plucked from the seas and hauled back to Cuba, where all were jailed or put under house arrest. But a few later escaped Cuba on rafts and reached Miami. Hence we have Maria Garcia’s gut-wrenching testimony. It was presented to the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and Amnesty International, who all filed “complaints,” “reports,” “protests,” whatever.
No government could possible condone, much less directly order such a thing—right? Wrong. One of the gallant water cannon gunners was even personally decorated by Castro. Nothing is done by Castro’s coast guard without orders from the top. As always, there was a method to the Maximum Leader’s murderous madness. The Clinton team—national security adviser Sandy Berger in particular—came into office hell-bent on “improving relations” with Cuba. Castro knew this. He also knew that Clinton was very touchy about Cuban refugees. In 1980, the Mariel Boatlift criminals (a mere handful of the total exodus, actually) had been shipped to Fort Chafee, Arkansas, under Arkansas governor Bill Clinton’s watch. After being told they’d be shipped back to Castroland, the Marielitos went berserk, rioting and burning down half the encampment.
Arkansas voters were aghast. When up for reelection, the man who had accepted the Marielitos, Governor Clinton, was trounced.
Some say the tugboat atrocity was Castro’s way of demonstrating to Clinton that he wouldn’t let a mass exodus of Cubans happen while Clinton was president. “Bill Clinton is terrified of Castro,” said Dick Morris, “He looks over his shoulder for rafters the way Castro is always looking over his shoulder expecting an invasion of Marines.”
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And indeed, two months after the tugboat massacre, Castro cut an immigration deal with a receptive Clinton administration. What we now call the “wet foot/dry foot” policy came into effect. Make it to shore, you stay, but no longer qualify automatically for political asylum. We intercept you at sea, you go back to Castroland.
To its credit, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service strongly condemned the tugboat massacre. But I can’t help thinking that had Ronald Reagan been president, he might have done more than wag his finger at the Communist murderers.
What was the net result of all the protests made about the massacre by the United Nations and other “multilateral” organizations? Well, barely a year and a half later, Castro received an engraved invitation to address the United Nations as a guest of honor.
And did Castro’s tugboat massacre put a cork in liberal blatherings about what a helluva guy Castro is? You’ve got to be joking. Instead, the pet manatee of the Democratic Party, Michael Moore (an “outstanding American,” according to Fidel himself), has done what liberals like to do—attack the victims.
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“These Cuban exiles,” he snorts, “for all their chest-thumping and terrorism, are really just a bunch of wimps. That’s right. Wimps! When you don’t like the oppressor in your country, you stay there and try to overthrow him. You don’t just turn tail and run like these Cubans. Imagine if the American colonists had all run to Canada and then insisted the Canadians had a responsibility to overthrow the British down in the States! . . . So the Cubans came here expecting us to fight their fight for them. And, like morons, we have.”
Moore adds: “These Cubans have not slept a wink since they grabbed their assets and headed to Florida.”
“Grabbed their assets,” folks. Let that sink in for a second. Does he mean the clothes Cuban refugees wore on their backs? The few crumbs they stuffed in their pockets? Does this imbecile realize that Castro stole all “their assets?” Does this moron know that no one could leave Cuba with anything? Does this obese idiot know that women had their very earrings yanked off their ears by Castroite guards at the airport?
One elderly lady insisted on wearing a small crucifix. The guard demanded she take it off: “You can’t take it. That pendant belongs to
la revolución!
”
la revolución!
”
“The hell it does!” she yelled back in tears. “This crucifix belonged to my son—who you swine murdered at the firing squad! I’ll die before I give it to you Communist assassins!”
She was dragged off.
Or perhaps the mothers clinging to their sons and daughters as the Castroite murders fired their water cannons were merely “grabbing their assets” so they could live like piggy Michael Moore.
Such was the “grabbing of assets” as we left Cuba, Mr. Moore. Did someone mention “Stupid White Men?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WHO NEEDS FREEDOM?
Even when innocent
Cubans escape to Florida—and freedom—liberals sometimes demand that armed guards send them back to Communist Castroland. They can’t believe anyone could prefer Miami to that “happy little island” governed by benign Fidel.
Cubans escape to Florida—and freedom—liberals sometimes demand that armed guards send them back to Communist Castroland. They can’t believe anyone could prefer Miami to that “happy little island” governed by benign Fidel.
During the Elián González controversy, liberals chanted: “A son belongs with his father. The rule of law should prevail.” No Cuban Americans disagreed.
The González family in Miami never wanted a media circus. They only wanted to take care of Elián and wait for his father to immigrate here,
as he originally intended.
Such reunions happen practically every week in Miami. The circus, the using of little Elián “as a political football,” was all
Castro’s
doing.
as he originally intended.
Such reunions happen practically every week in Miami. The circus, the using of little Elián “as a political football,” was all
Castro’s
doing.
The evidence—zealously shunned by the mainstream media—was overwhelming. Mauricio Vincent, a reporter for Madrid newspaper
El Pais
, wrote that he’d visited Elián’s home town of Cardenas and talked with Elián’s father, Juan Miguel, along with other family members and friends. All confirmed that Juan Miguel longed for his son Elián to flee to the United States.
El Pais
, wrote that he’d visited Elián’s home town of Cardenas and talked with Elián’s father, Juan Miguel, along with other family members and friends. All confirmed that Juan Miguel longed for his son Elián to flee to the United States.
In phone call after phone call from Elián’s Cuban family to his Miami family, the Cubans made themselves very clear: Please take care of Elián. His father’s on the way.
Juan Miguel had even applied for a U.S. visa. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service knew this, but it became public only after Judicial Watch uncovered the evidence: an INS document written by INS attorney Rebeca Sanchez-Roig about a conference call with commissioner Doris Meissner. “If coercion could be shown,” it read, “then the INS could potentially accept the child’s asylum application and advise that there is no prohibition on age to child filing application. As such PA [political asylum] should proceed.”
The
Miami Herald
reported that on November 26, 1999, the day after Elián was rescued, Juan Miguel had obtained certified copies of Elián’s birth certificate and his marriage certificate to his deceased exwife, Elizabeth. These documents are the first order of business for Cubans seeking a visa to the United States. Please notice the date—Juan Miguel did these things
before
Castro intervened in the Elián case, which he did on December 5, 1999. Elián’s Miami uncle, Lazaro, said it best: ‘I always said I would turn over Elián to his father,” he said repeatedly. “But Juan Miguel should come here and claim him. It was not Juan Miguel requesting Elián—it was Fidel.”
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Miami Herald
reported that on November 26, 1999, the day after Elián was rescued, Juan Miguel had obtained certified copies of Elián’s birth certificate and his marriage certificate to his deceased exwife, Elizabeth. These documents are the first order of business for Cubans seeking a visa to the United States. Please notice the date—Juan Miguel did these things
before
Castro intervened in the Elián case, which he did on December 5, 1999. Elián’s Miami uncle, Lazaro, said it best: ‘I always said I would turn over Elián to his father,” he said repeatedly. “But Juan Miguel should come here and claim him. It was not Juan Miguel requesting Elián—it was Fidel.”
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Why did Castro intervene? People, including little boys, flee from Cuba every week. Why Castro’s obsession with getting
this one
back?
this one
back?
Exiled Cuban novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante explained it best, writing in the
Miami Herald
on April 17, 2000, just days before the raid that would seize Elián from his Miami relatives, “Every year, Santeria, the African-rooted religion popularly practiced in Cuba, publishes a horoscope. The Santeros ‘toss the coconut shells’ and forecast the future according to whether the shells fall flesh side up or down. The Santeros have tied the future of the Castro regime to the fate of Elián González, who is to them the reincarnation of Elegua, a kind of Christ child. The position of the coconut shells foreshadows ills for the ‘tribe’ of Cuba and a worse fate for the ‘chief,’ Fidel Castro.
Miami Herald
on April 17, 2000, just days before the raid that would seize Elián from his Miami relatives, “Every year, Santeria, the African-rooted religion popularly practiced in Cuba, publishes a horoscope. The Santeros ‘toss the coconut shells’ and forecast the future according to whether the shells fall flesh side up or down. The Santeros have tied the future of the Castro regime to the fate of Elián González, who is to them the reincarnation of Elegua, a kind of Christ child. The position of the coconut shells foreshadows ills for the ‘tribe’ of Cuba and a worse fate for the ‘chief,’ Fidel Castro.
“As soon as the Santeros learned of Elián’s fate (the boy had been rescued at sea, saved from sharks by the appearance of dolphins and after forty-eight hours in the water under a blazing sun did not show the burns and sores typical of those rescued at sea), they declared that he was a divine Elegua and that if he remained in Miami Fidel Castro ‘would fall.’ ”
Now you understand his desperation. So many Cubans nowadays—some say Castro is a Santero too—dabble in Santeria that their priests’ prophecy could have seriously shaken Castro’s hold on the island.
On January 31, 2000, a Christian evangelical minister from India, the Reverend Kilari Anan Paul, visited Cuba. The reverend was closely following the Elián saga from his native India and was severely miffed by the Cuban exile crackpots and hotheads in Miami. The reverend stood shoulder to shoulder with Castro on this one, completely in favor of the United States returning Elián to Cuba and his father. Toward this noble end, the reverend attempted to meet with Juan Miguel González at his Cardenas home—but found him under house arrest.
Regarding the hapless Juan Miguel, forget the idiotic and smarmy CBS interview conducted by Fidel’s chum Dan Rather. Instead, read the last chapter of David Limbaugh’s book
Absolute Power: The Legacy of Corruption in the Clinton-Reno Justice Department
. Limbaugh saw through the farce—and I don’t just mean the raid President Clinton’s attorney general, Janet Reno, ordered against Elián’s Miami family. Even many liberals, including Lawrence Tribe and Alan Dershowitz, recognized the raid as a legal atrocity. But Limbaugh documents how the judicial outrages had started
months
before.
Absolute Power: The Legacy of Corruption in the Clinton-Reno Justice Department
. Limbaugh saw through the farce—and I don’t just mean the raid President Clinton’s attorney general, Janet Reno, ordered against Elián’s Miami family. Even many liberals, including Lawrence Tribe and Alan Dershowitz, recognized the raid as a legal atrocity. But Limbaugh documents how the judicial outrages had started
months
before.
A lawyer himself, Limbaugh informs us that several affidavits swore to Juan Miguel’s
original wishes
for his son before Castro put the squeeze on him. These were from Juan’s first cousins. One even swore that Juan had repeatedly told him how he yearned to escape to the United States, even “rowing over in a washtub” if necessary. More important, on December 1, 1999, the INS asserted that Elián’s uncle Lazaro in Miami was indeed the boy’s legal custodian and that Florida’s family court was the place to arbitrate further issues.
original wishes
for his son before Castro put the squeeze on him. These were from Juan’s first cousins. One even swore that Juan had repeatedly told him how he yearned to escape to the United States, even “rowing over in a washtub” if necessary. More important, on December 1, 1999, the INS asserted that Elián’s uncle Lazaro in Miami was indeed the boy’s legal custodian and that Florida’s family court was the place to arbitrate further issues.
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