On this day in 1996 President Bill Clinton signed the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (also known as the Helms-Burton Act ) into law at a ceremony with members of the families of the four men killed on the two Brothers to the Rescue Planes on February 24, 1996.
The Cuban dictatorship observed the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (also known as the Helms-Burton Act ) complaining about it, but omitting why this law came into effect in 1996. The Cuban dictatorship’s hand picked president Miguel Diaz-Canel tweeted out a graphic portraying the law in a negative light.
On the same day, Representative Mario Diaz-Balart filled in some gaps on the significance of the law, and the reason for its enactment.
Here is some more context on the significance of Brothers to the Rescue for Cubans, their nonviolent legacy, and the state terrorism committed by the Cuban dictatorship.
Brothers to the Rescue logo
Brothers to the Rescue, an initiative by volunteer pilots, came into existence in 1991 after the death of 15-year-old refugee Gregorio Perez Ricardo because of dehydration due to a lack of fresh water while on a raft fleeing Cuba.
15-year-old refugee Gregorio Perez Ricardo
They sought to save refugees in the Florida Straits and succeeded in saving more than 4,200 lives.
Brothers to the Rescue also connected with the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta and held teach-ins on nonviolence in South Florida.
Coretta Scott King and Jose Basulto of Brothers to the Rescue.
On Jan. 13, 1996, from international airspace, they successfully leafleted Havana with a message of empowerment and solidarity, along with excerpts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Sample of flier that reached Havana.
The Cuban dictatorship, outraged by this legal act of resistance, initiated Operation Scorpion, using its spy network in the United States to gather information, sow division and plan the downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes.
The terrorist attack was carried out by Cuban MiGs on the afternoon of February 24, 1996, and killed Armando Alejandre Jr., 45, Carlos Alberto Costa, 29, Mario Manuel de la Pena, 24, and Pablo Morales, 29, over international airspace.
It also led to the passage of the Helms-Burton Act (Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act) on March 12, 1996, which codified sanctions and their lifting on the following three conditions: the liberation of all political prisoners; the legalization of all political parties, labor unions and the press; and the scheduling of free, multiparty elections for the Cuban people.
The Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization ( ICAO ) on June 27, 1996 concluded its consideration of the report on the 24 February 1996 shooting down of two United States-registered private civil aircraft with a resolution in which conclusions were reached. The ICAO concluded that both Brothers to the Rescue planes had not entered Cuban territorial airspace when they were shot down without warning by Cuban MiGs on February 24, 1996. The full ICAO report is available here in PDF format.
On February 26, 1996 President Clinton addressed the country. Below is the full video, and an excerpt of what he said.
In 2015, the Obama State Department removed Cuba from the list of states that sponsor terrorism in response to a public demand by Raul Castro that the full restoration of diplomatic relations be contingent upon Cuba being removed from the list.
During Obama’s thaw with Havana, violence increased against Cuban dissidents, the Cuban government weaponized migration, with over 120,000 Cubans entering the U.S. through Central America, and U.S. diplomats in Havana began suffering brain damage in 2016 in what the Biden administration would call “anomalous health incidents but became better known as “the Havana Syndrome.”
Furthermore, defenders of Obama’s Cuba policy make no mention of diplomatic slights against Obama by Havana, including Raul Castro presiding over a military parade on Jan. 2, 2017, where Cuban soldiers chanted they’d shoot Obama so many times in the head that they’d make him a hat of lead.
Despite this, on his way out of office, Obama provided two additional concessions responding positively to two long-standing demands by the Cuban dictatorship: ending the so-called Wet-Foot Dry-Foot policy, which allowed Cubans legal status if they touched U.S. soil, and the Cuban Professional Medical Parole program, which provided trafficked Cuban doctors with asylum. These policy changes harmed ordinary Cubans and helped Cuba’s dictatorship.
After normalizing U.S.-Cuba relations, Obama’s secretary of State, John Kerry said in an interview on Sept. 9, 2020, “It’s fair to say that everybody shares a little bit of disappointment about the direction that the government in Cuba chose to go.” Kerry continued, “Cuba seemed to harden down after the initial steps were taken.”
Throwback Thursday: The Helms-Burton Act’s 30th Anniversary
March 12, 2026
By Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk | Vanderbilt Law School
Thirty years ago today, on March 12, 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996, better known by the names of its principal sponsors as the Helms-Burton Act (“the Act”). The Act was designed to sanction Fidel Castro’s government and to encourage a transition to a democratically elected government in Cuba. The most controversial and best-known part of the Act – although not yet the most significant with respect to its actual effect on Cuba – is Title III. It controversially provides a broad remedy for U.S. nationals with interests in Cuban-confiscated property against “any person that traffics” in that property (emphasis added). The Act’s extraterritorial reach through the language “any person,” and through its expansive definition of “traffics,” generated widespread international backlash when it was passed. Congress intended the Act to deter companies from third-party countries from investing in Cuba, which was widely condemned as a violation of Cuban sovereign and as improperly regulating foreign corporations’ business ventures.
Title III allows the President to suspend its provisions, which every President did until 2019 when President Trump permitted Helms-Burton claims to be filed for the first time. President Biden did not reverse that action, and many large claims have been filed since 2019 against a wide variety of defendants, including cruise lines, airlines, online travel services, oil companies, and others.
Since 2019, the Act, particularly Title III, has received significant judicial and scholarly attention. Scholars, including this blog’s authors, have argued that Title III has backfired: instead of punishing foreign corporations for investing in Cuba, it has harmed U.S. companies with attenuated connections to Cuban-expropriated property. Recent litigation before the Supreme Court has also focused on the purpose of the statute. To understand the Act’s resurgence, the ways in which it may have backfired, as well as its purpose more generally, it is helpful to review what prompted its enactment in the first place.
The Evolution of the Helms-Burton Act: Legislative, Political, and Judicial History
Shortly after overthrowing the Cuban government in 1959, Fidel Castro nationalized industries and expropriated commercial property throughout Cuba, including much that belonged to U.S. nationals. American companies had been an integral part of Cuba’s economic development after it became independent from Spain in 1902, and by the late 1950’s they owned a large portion of Cuba’s land and oil, as well as most of Cuba’s utilities, mines, and cattle ranches. U.S.-based organized crime operations owned all Cuban casinos and many brothels. After their property was expropriated, aggrieved parties immediately sought recourse in the United States through political and legal channels.
Expropriation claims by U.S. companies against Cuba culminated in the 1964 case Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, in which the Supreme Court held that the act of state doctrine prevented U.S. courts from imposing liability based on the expropriation by Cuba of property located in Cuba – whether or not they were valid under customary international law. In response, Congress passed the Second Hickenlooper Amendment, directing that U.S. courts disregard the act of state doctrine, but Cuba never paid the resulting judgments. See Bill Dodge’s post discussing Sabbatino and its aftermath here.
As Sabbatino worked its way through the court system, President Kennedy imposed a strict embargo against Cuba under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The government broadly defined “persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” under the Act to include some foreign subsidiaries that did no business in the United States, but with a significant caveat: subsidiaries of U.S. firms in friendly foreign countries could get a license to trade with Cuba if they did not use U.S. property or U.S. money.
Over the following twenty years, Presidents adjusted the embargo regulations based on the political relationship with Cuba. Congress eventually restricted the President’s power to do so in the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992, which prohibited Cuban trade licenses to foreign subsidiaries. Dissatisfied with the Castro regime’s resilience as other Communist governments fell in the early 1990s, Congress also proposed the Helms-Burton Act to increase pressure on the Castro regime and provide financial recourse for Americans who had still not recovered judgments for Cuban expropriation. The Act was a direct response to Cuba’s efforts to attract foreign investors to bolster its economy. Congress justified the Act’s extraterritorial reach to “any persons” by asserting that foreign investments in Cuba would have a “substantial effect” in the United States.
Prior to 1996, the Act was dead in the water – President Clinton was adamant that he would not sign it, and Congress was in no hurry to pass it. In fact, while it was first under consideration in October 1995, President Clinton actually instituted measures to increase communications and information flow between Cuba and the United States. The Act advanced through Congress and was signed into law only after a disagreement around Cuban human rights violations led the Cuban Air Force to shoot down two U.S. civilian planes containing Cuban-American protestors and Cuba’s announcement that it was reviving a nuclear power program that it had terminated years earlier. Cuba and the United States each blamed the other for the plane incident, but the United Nations strongly denounced Cuba’s actions.
The Helms-Burton bill quickly passed the House and the Senate. President Clinton’s newfound support urged “Congress to pass the LIBERTAD bill in order to send Cuba a powerful message that the United States will not tolerate further loss of American life.” Congress reconsidered the extraterritorial component of the bill after Canada and Mexico complained, but it was too little, too late to stop the bill.
A Brief Summary of the Act
Title I of the Act codified the long-standing trade embargo and financial transaction limitations that began under President Kennedy. Title II called upon the President to produce a transition plan for assisting the rise of a democratic government in Cuba. Title III created the notorious private right of action against persons that “traffic[ked]” in expropriated property. Title IV required the Secretary of State to deny visas to and exclude persons that confiscated or “traffic[ked]” in property that previously belonged to U.S. nationals in Cuba. The Act was intended to deter foreign interests from investing in Cuba by creating economic uncertainty, which Congress hoped would help topple the Castro regime.
Canada and Mexico, as noted above, strongly opposed the Helms-Burton Act and sought consultation with the United States under the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Even after President Clinton suspended lawsuits against foreign firms (suspensions which remained in effect until 2019), Canada and the European Union made plans to retaliate against American companies if the United States let Title III take effect. The New York Times issued an editorial acknowledging the horrors of Castro’s regime but emphasizing that “the Administration is about to make a huge mistake by signing into law a bill . . . that aims to coerce other countries into joining the American embargo of Cuba . . . [and] will inevitably slow the opening of Cuban society and pick a pointless quarrel with American allies.” Others criticized the bill as violating “elementary principles of international law,” for failing to adequately advance its purpose of bringing democracy to Cuba, for hampering “the discretion of the executive branch,” and for overemphasizing “property issues almost two generations old.”
Thirty Years On: Four Observations
The U.S. embargo of Cuba, which was codified in Helms-Burton, has remained controversial and has inflicted very significant economic harm on the people of Cuba over the ensuing 30 years. It has also failed to topple the regime. Today, however, the country appears to be in an increasingly untenable position from both deteriorating economic conditions and threats by the Trump administration.
As for Title III, immediately following President Trump’s 2019 decision to lift the suspension, litigation ramped up in a series of cases that have been covered extensively on TLB. Reflecting on that litigation in light of the statute’s history leads to four general observations.
First, U.S. Supreme Court cases since 1996 have made it more difficult to assert personal jurisdiction over foreign corporations, at least (following Fuld v. PLO) absent clear language by Congress about personal jurisdiction, which Helms-Burton lacks. The statute is, in other words, not reaching foreign corporations to the extent that some had feared or wanted.
Second, and probably relatedly, Title III litigation has generated no significant protests about violations of international law. I have not found any examples of foreign countries protesting actual cases under Title III. Although scholars have explained that some cases against agencies and instrumentalities of foreign governments might violate international law if the Supreme Court holds in Exxon v. Cimex that Helms-Burton abrogates foreign sovereign immunity otherwise conferred by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the actual effect of a ruling in that case remains unclear.
Third, the purpose of the statute has been frequently invoked in cases in which courts must decide how broadly to interpret its language, including in two recent oral arguments before the Supreme Court in Exxon v. Cimex and Havana Dock v. Royal Caribbean Cruises. Plaintiffs assert that the statute was intended to have a dramatic, punitive effect on Cuba and that its language should therefore be interpreted broadly to impose liability on as many defendants for as much conduct as possible. That argument is undermined by even the cursory discussion of the statute in this post, which shows that Congress was engaged in a decades-long effort to calibrate various economic measures against Cuba, rather than just using a massive one-time hammer. And if interpretation of the statute’s very expansive text as written did lead to under-enforcement, Congress has legislated repeatedly in this context and could do so again.
Fourth, if the Cuban regime falls, Congress should act immediately to suspend and then terminate Title III cases in favor of some kind of claim settlement agreement worked out between the United States and Cuba. The treble damages available under the statute, its very broad scope, and the congressional findings in the statute itself, all show that one purpose was to effect regime change. If the regime changes, the statute is no longer needed, and the two governments should sit down and craft a settlement that is as fair as possible to those who hold claims and also to the Cuban people.
https://tlblog.org/throwback-thursday-the-helms-burton-acts-30th-anniversary/
Is a Cuba libre on the horizon?
On anniversary of 1996 rescue plane downing, change is on the way
–
Change is in the air in Cuba, but it is not because of an internal uprising. The totalitarian dictatorship built by brothers Fidel and Raul Castro with the aid of the Soviet KGB, East German Stasi and former Waffen-SS members has built through terror and murder the perfect prison to contain the Cuban people in misery.
Despite this, Cubans risked everything standing up for freedom in Cuba through citizen initiatives such as the Varela Project and paid the ultimate price.
Some sought to begin new lives abroad and freedom, only to be massacred by Cuban government agents in the Florida Straits. Others died because of the elements and the lack of fresh water.
Brothers to the Rescue, an initiative by volunteer pilots, came into existence in 1991 after the death of 15-year-old refugee Gregorio Perez Ricardo because of a lack of water.
They sought to save refugees in the Florida Straits and succeeded in saving more than 4,200 lives.
Brothers to the Rescue also connected with the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta and held teach-ins on nonviolence in South Florida.
On Jan. 13, 1996, from international airspace, they successfully leafleted Havana with a message of empowerment and solidarity, along with excerpts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Cuban dictatorship, outraged by this legal act of resistance, initiated Operation Scorpion, using its spy network in the United States to gather information, sow division and plan the downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes.
The terrorist attack was carried out by Cuban MiGs on the afternoon of Feb. 24, 1996, and killed Armando Alejandre Jr., 45, Carlos Alberto Costa, 29, Mario Manuel de la Pena, 24, and Pablo Morales, 29, over international airspace.
It also led to the passage of the Helms-Burton Act (Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act) on March 12, 1996, which codified sanctions and their lifting on the following three conditions: the liberation of all political prisoners; the legalization of all political parties, labor unions and the press; and the scheduling of free, multiparty elections for the Cuban people.
Change is underway because of the United States. The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy states that it will not tolerate hostile actors in the Western Hemisphere.
“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere. This ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine is a commonsense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests.”
This is bad news for the dictatorships in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela that are hostile to the United States and allied with Beijing, Moscow and Tehran.
The Cuban dictatorship is the oldest of these dictatorships. It exported and successfully implanted its model in Caracas and Managua, visiting misery and terror on millions more in those nations. On Jan. 24, the Trump administration issued an executive order describing Cuba as a malign influence undermining U.S. national interests in the region and provided some specific examples.
The Cuban regime aligns itself with numerous hostile countries and malign actors, hosting their military and intelligence capabilities. For example, Cuba hosts Russia’s largest overseas signals intelligence facility focused on stealing sensitive national security information from the United States.
Cuba provides a haven for transnational terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and supports adversaries in the Western Hemisphere, undermining U.S. sanctions and regional stability.
The regime persecutes and tortures political opponents, denies free speech and press, profits corruptly from the Cuban people’s misery and incites chaos by spreading communist ideology across the region.
These actions constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to U.S. national security and foreign policy, requiring immediate response to protect American citizens and interests.
Havana also has visited terrorism on innocents throughout the region, including the United States, and continues to harbor terrorist fugitives who murdered Americans, such as bomb maker Guillermo Morales, to the present day.
The United States entered the Spanish-American War after the explosion of the USS Maine on Feb. 15, 1898, and Cuba’s independence was declared in April 1898 by the Teller Amendment, which became law.
Today, thanks to the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, passed because of the Brothers to the Rescue plane downing 30 years ago, and U.S. national security interests in the region, history may be rhyming to a similar tune: that of a Cuba libre with a clear path to democratic, multiparty elections and freedom for all political prisoners in exchange for all sanctions being lifted.
John Suarez is a human rights activist, the executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba and a former program officer for Latin America programs at Freedom House.
The Miami Herald, May 8, 1999
Top spy planned Brothers ambush
By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer
The mastermind behind Cuba’s ambush of two Brothers to the Rescue airplanes
was “MX, the code name for the head of Havana’s Directorate of Intelligence (DI),
according to the indictment returned Friday by a Miami grand jury.
His agents in Miami, known as the Wasp Network, used beepers to signal each
other, contacted a Cuban diplomat in the men’s room of a restaurant and filed
reports on U.S. military activities in South Florida, the indictment added.
The indictment offered an intriguing glimpse into DI activities and interests in
Miami in connection with “Operation Scorpion — the ambush of four Brothers
pilots shot down and killed by Cuban MiGs on Feb. 24, 1996.
It also accused a top agent of the Wasp Network of conspiracy to commit
murder. The DI captain, who has used fake U.S. passports in the name of Manuel
Viramontes, was identified in the indictment as Gerardo Hernandez.
But the indictment also left some key questions unanswered:
Why were no charges filed against Viramontes’ supervisors in Havana,
including the mysterious “MX?
Why were no charges filed against Cuban President Fidel Castro, who the
indictment says visited “MX” twice in the week after the ambush to analyze
“follow-up operations.
The indictment indicates the plot to ambush the Brothers pilots started around
December 1995, when defendant Juan Pablo Roque was ordered by Havana to
“urgently inform” on the activities of Brothers leader Jose Basulto.
Hernandez was told on Feb. 17 that “MX had directed that none of his spies
should fly with Brothers Feb. 24-27, the indictment said, apparently to safeguard
them from the planned shootdowns.
By Feb. 22, 1996, the trap appeared to be in place, with DI officials in Havana
reporting that a special agent had traveled to an undisclosed site to support
Roque’s escape after the trap was sprung.
Roque, a “defector who had become friends with Basulto, disappeared on Feb.
23. While initial media reports had him returning to Cuba via the Bahamas, the
indictment says he escaped through Mexico, long a base for Cuban intelligence
operations.
One of the accused spies had a Mexican driver’s license, and two of the accused
who traveled back to Cuba to receive new orders appear to have done so through
Mexico, according to the indictment.
The indictment also charged that the Cuban spies used beepers to message
each other, and were under orders to use a special code in “an emergency
indicating a U.S. military threat being planned against Cuba.
The spy network appeared to have been primarily assigned to report on Cuban
exiles in Miami while provoking and encouraging differences within the exile
community, the indictment said.
But the agents were also tasked with “influencing U.S. public and private
institutions, including law enforcement and political entities, the document added.
Their work included sending letters to The Miami Herald portraying the writers as
Cuban-American moderates and attacking exile community leaders like Jorge
Mas Canosa, the late founder of the Cuban American National Foundation, law
enforcement officials said.
The indictment also indicated that the alleged Cuban agents had apparently spent
more time spying on U.S. military installations than previously thought.
Defendant Antonio Guerrero filed two reports on the Boca Chica Naval Air Station
in Key West, describing planes and their takeoff and landing times, as well as the
home addresses of some officers, the indictment said.
Joseph and Amarylis Santos filed at least one “detailed” report on the
Miami-based U.S. Southern Command and were under orders to try to obtain jobs
at the complex, which controls U.S. military activities in Latin America.
And defendant Rene Gonzalez, a pilot with the exile Democracy Movement,
reported he had flown close to the Homestead air base to report on activities
there.
One unidentified member of the Wasp Network met on April 14, 1998, with a
Cuban diplomat — apparently attached to the Cuban mission to the United
Nations — in the men’s room of a Wendy’s in Nassau County, New York, the
indictment added
Although the indictment did not identify the mysterious “MX, the post of chief of
the Directorate of Intelligence is usually held by a deputy minister in the Ministry
of Interior, which handles Cuba’s internal security.
The staff at the DI, formerly known as the DGI, was heavily purged after the 1989
trial and execution of Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa and several Interior Ministry
intelligence operatives on charges of drug smuggling.
Gen. Jesus Bermudez Cutiño, then head of army intelligence, was named to head
DI but was transferred back to military intelligence in 1995, several Cuban armed
forces defectors in Miami said.
The identity of Bermudez’s replacement was not immediately available.
Sea taunts Cubans seeking freedom
Like many of the hundreds of Cubans who secretly set off from the island nation on rustic Soviet truck inner tubes, Felix Versailles and his two companions did not anticipate the roller-coaster bobbing of the Florida Straits. These “rafters” did not foresee schools of fish biting their legs, nibbling at painful blisters. And they never thought fatigue and anguish would spawn mirages in the chilly darkness.
“I became disoriented, going in and out of sleep as I tried to keep rowing,” Versailles, 26, said. “I saw ships in the night that weren’t there; I saw coastlines that weren’t there.”
On Aug. 29, the fifth day of their perilous crossing to freedom, Versailles and the others were seen by a yachtsman and his wife and later were picked up by a Coast Guard helicopter about 25 miles east of Hillsborough Inlet in Deerfield Beach.
They could not walk after sitting on their burlap-covered, 9-foot-long raft for so long. They spent nine days at Hollywood Memorial Hospital recovering from severe sunburn, dehydration and fish bites.
It is unusual for the Gulf Stream to propel rafters so far north, but that is the only unique aspect to Versailles’ story in a record-setting year for plucking Cubans from the waters off South Florida.
By Dec. 19, 1990, the Coast Guard had picked up 423 Cubans at sea, surpassing 1989’s total of 391. Not since the Mariel boatlift of 1980 ferried 125,000 refugees to Key West have so many Cubans crossed over in a single year.
Still, just one in every three Cubans who attempt the crossing to South Florida is successful. The others drown or are caught by Cuban patrol boats and imprisoned for at least three years. Unlike their Haitian counterparts, Cuban boat and raft refugees who do make it to the United States are released by immigration authorities to their relatives almost immediately.
Most rafters are inexperienced mariners who share identical motives for risking their lives. They say they are driven by political repression, widespread consumer shortages and little hope for change in their homeland.
The majority are physically fit men in the their late teens and 20s who worked as laborers in Cuba. But Cuban students and professionals with access to fishing boats are joining the exodus.
These young people who were fully immersed in the teachings of Fidel Castro increasingly are becoming fed up with his 31-year regime, experts say.
“They prefer to die in the ocean (rather) than to go on living there,” said Juan Clark, a sociology professor at Miami-Dade Community College who has written a book about living conditions in Cuba. “It is ironic that Castro’s regime claims the young people received the greatest benefits of the revolution. Yet, they are the ones most eager to leave.”
Versailles, a track and field competitor, was at the University of Havana, studying to become an athletic trainer. He now presses designs onto T-shirts in a Hialeah plant, takes English classes and lives with an uncle. His parents and two sisters still live in Havana.
“Life is certainly not easy here,” Versailles said. “But if you work hard, you can achieve a lot of things. In Cuba, I felt restricted even as a university student. You are not allowed to have personal aspirations or achieve success as an individual. You are also pressured into becoming active in political organizations, which is something I wanted no part of.”
Most rafters underestimate the volatile nature of the Florida Straits. Some are lucky and are carried uneventfully by the Gulf Stream’s powerful northward currents. Others fall victim to rough seas when winds clash with the currents.
Jorge Luis Pichardo, 27, who works as a house painter with his uncle in suburban Dade, remembers the torment of the rocking ocean once he and four friends cleared Cuban waters. They left on a raft constructed of two tractor inner tubes held together by canvas and wooden planks. Their supplies consisted of bottled water, 25 cans of condensed milk and bread, which was ruined by the salt water.
They embarked at 3 a.m. from Santa Fe, a beach resort east of Havana. Thick foliage hid their escape from the nearby searchlights of a Cuban highway patrol.
“Once we were out at sea, rowing was an impossible task because it was very choppy and windy,” Pichardo said. “Two of the others got seasick right away. We didn’t realize it would be so dangerous and painfully uncomfortable.”
Pichardo’s group was seen after three days, 10 miles southeast of Marathon.
Romulo Clavelo, 28, led a seemingly privileged life by Cuban standards. He was a doctor in Havana with his own practice, a one-bedroom apartment provided by the government and a 20-foot fishing boat, Tailyn, named for his 3-year-old daughter.
But on Oct. 19, Clavelo, his wife, daughter, baby boy and 69-year-old mother boarded the boat. Four friends joined them from a desolate stretch of beach seven miles east of Havana. In the still of evening, with no other boats in sight, they headed north.
They were not savvy sea voyagers. The boat’s small engine gave out and they didn’t take essential equipment such as a flare or mirror to signal passing ships. They were fortunate to be picked up by a Greek cargo ship 30 miles south of Key West after 17 hours at sea. They suffered only queasiness from the rough seas.
“When we boarded the Greek freighter, we didn’t know how far we were from the United States,” Clavelo said. “The captain, who spoke Spanish, reassured us that we were right on course. We were greatly relieved and very happy.”
A family doctor with six years of schooling, Clavelo said his position did not come with any perks, except for the small apartment. His $325-a-month salary was not much higher than that of a laborer’s. And the government overburdened physicians by assigning each of them 500 to 700 patients, while medical supplies dwindled. Cuba’s crumbling economy and food shortages stifled everyone’s life, he said.
“As conditions worsen in my country, more and more people are making the crucial decision that I made,” Clavelo said. “We were seeing all the changes taking place in Socialist countries in Eastern Europe, but there was no hope for a democratic transformation in Cuba. Freedom is very important to all of us.”
Clavelo and his family live in southwest Dade County with his wife’s relatives. He is looking for a job at a local hospital before beginning the tedious process of reaccreditation to practice medicine in Florida.
Clavelo’s relatively smooth sea crossing contrasts with the experiences of those who spend months surreptitiously acquiring hard-to-get materials to build rafts.
Early in 1990, stories of Cuban freedom seekers captured the attention of Miami’s Cuban exiles. On Feb. 20, 15-year-old Gregorio Perez Ricardo died minutes after being rescued by the Coast Guard eight miles off Islamorada. He was found curled in the fetal position, clutching his 6-foot-long raft.
His death symbolized the long struggle against communism to the hundreds of Cuban exiles who packed a memorial service for the youth.
Two weeks later, the remarkable story of Lester Moreno Perez, 17, who rode a windsurfing board to freedom, briefly transformed the Cuban teen-ager into a celebrity. Moreno Perez was rescued by a Bahamian freighter 30 miles southeast of Key West after a wind-swept 16-hour, 60-mile journey.
Young Cubans on the island are familiar with the stories of the rafters who have made it, Pichardo said. Radio Marti broadcasts their accounts into Cuba, inspiring others to attempt the journey.
A carnival worker and handyman in Cuba, Pichardo said life was a “constant state of nervous tension with nothing for young people to look forward to.”
Many rafters, however, say they had mixed feelings about leaving because of family ties. Pichardo left behind a fiancee, his parents and three brothers. He said he felt a cross fire of emotions when he was rescued by the Coast Guard.
“When we were picked up, we started crying and we were very happy, but the happiness was tempered by sadness,” Pichardo said. “I knew I couldn’t go on living back there, but a part of me wanted to stay behind with my fiancee and family. Leaving was very hard for me because I knew I could not return to them.”
_ Information from the Miami Herald was used in this story.
https://www.tampabay.com/