RAFTERS AGAIN! How many now and why?
Oh yes, conditions are
so much better in Cuba. Who are they kidding? What are their motives? When I
read some newspaper articles and hear those speaking of how much better off
Cuba is today….
The empty rafts speak …
and those rafters that survived the odyssey.
According to an article
in The Tampa Tribune, October 12, 2014,
the number of Cubans fleeing the island and attempting to reach the United
States by sea grew nearly to 4,000 people this past year.
Who
lives and who dies in the search for freedom? The article
speaks of the danger for rafters. One of the worst Cuban rafter tragedies this
year involved the 32 people leaving Cuba and lost at sea for nearly a month. By
the time a Mexican fisherman found the rafters, 15 people were still alive. Two
of those survivors later died. Some so desperate they drank their unrine and blood.
Why
don’t Cubans come in other ways? According to another
article in The Tampa Bay Times, October 12, 2014, for the past
ten years, sophisticated smuggling networks that use go-fast boats were
responsible for the vast majority of Cuban migration. Today, a crackdown on
those boats and the high price they charge, which few Cubans are able to
afford, stopped that operation.
“I believe there is a
silent massive exodus,” said Ramon Saul Sanchez, an exile leader in Miami who
has helped families of those who died at sea fleeing Castro’s regime.
A
massive exodus? And with what vessels?
What are these floating devices like?
“We have seen vessels
made out of styrofoam and some made out of inner tubes. These vessels have no
navigation equipment, no lifesaving equipment,” said Cmdr. Timothy Cronin,
deputy chief of enforcement for the Coast Guard’s Miami District.
A
Rafter’s Story:
Yannio La O, a
31-year-old wrestling coach who came to Miami after the shipwreck landed him in
Mexico said, “If I had to save $10,000 with my monthly salary of $17, to make
it to the United States in another way, I would not get here until I was 80 or
90 years old.”
Yannio and 32 others
departed from Manzanillo, in southern Cuba, in late August, on a boat they put
together in three months. They had engine trouble and their food was
contaminated by a sealant they brought along to patch up holes in the hull.
“Every day at 6 a.m.,
or 6 p.m., somebody died,” La O said.
Are Cuba’s conditions
better now? Why don’t we ask Yannio La O.
"I would tell anyone in Cuba to come. It's better to die
on your feet than live on
your knees,” Yannio La O said.
Art work by Tony Mendoza for the book, Cuban-American, Dancing On The Hyphen.
