Castro convoy pours on to embassy land to aid fleeing 10,000

Press, 9 April 1980, Page 8

Castro convoy pours on to embassy land to aid fleeing 10,000

NZPA Havana A traffic jam of milk trucks, water tankers, ambulances, and other supply trucks crowded the approaches to the Peruvian Embassy in Havana yesterday in an effort to relieve the plight of an estimated 10,000 Cubans seeking asylum abroad.

The would-be emigrants, who streamed into the 12,000 sq.m, park around the embassy throughout the week-end, appeared to have Bt least-another 48 hours to wait before learning their destination.

The Cuban Government, in a sharp break with previous policy, has announced that people wanting to leave the Caribbean Island and Dr Fidel Castro’s revolutionary society are free to do so, provided they can find an open door overseas. The Peruvian Government, shocked by the sudden influx, has said it cannot possibly accept all 10,000 refugees.

The Andes Pact countries — Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela — .were not expected to meet to discuss possible refugee quotas until today. In the meantime, the refugees, labelled by the Havana regime as delinquents and anti-social elements, lived an hour-by-hour endurance test against' problems of health, sanitation, hunger, thirst, tropical heat, and simply finding enough room to lie down. The Cuban authorities, after making disparaging remarks about the Peruvian staff’s inability to handle the problem, have sent in essential supplies. Mattresses by the truckload were one of the amenities delivered to let the aged and the sick, pregnant women, and young babies get some rest on ground that remained a lawn in name only. Rest was not easy to find amid the shrieks of children, the stench, of human excrement, and noisy attempts to : raise morale through

group singing and cheering. Impromptu choral groups alternated between such hymns as the Cuban national anthem and chants of freedom.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman called the refugee jam a

signal of intense dis- . satisfaction with life in Cuba, and remarked that it ■ would be a rather remarkable change in policy if Cuba began recognising the right to travel freely. The spokesman said the United States would be prepared to co-operate if asked to handle some of the emigrants, but any granting of visas would be on a case-by-case basis. Thousands of Cuban exiles massed in Miami, Florida, to show their support for those camped at the Peruvian embassy. Up to 8000 exiles crowded around the “Torch of Freedom” in Bayfront Park carrying anti-Soviet and anti-Castro signs and chanting: “Cuba si, Russia no.” The demonstration spilled over into city-centre streets, blocking rush-hour traffic. A locally Cuban-owned radio station organised a drive to assemble food packages to send to the would-be emigrants. A spokesman for Eastern Airlines said the airline had offered to provide a Boeing 727 jet at no charge to carry the supplies if both the United States and Cuban Governments gave their ap-

proval. The unrest that spurred throngs of Cubans to seek political asylum in the Peruvian embassy has been brewing for several months. After a lull in the 19705,

the growing stream of Cuban boat people is again on the rise. Last year, more than 100 exiles reached Florida in boats, compared with 119 to

1978, a dozen in 1976, and none in 1975. In recent months, hun-

dreds of Cuban refugees have fled to Florida, navigating the often dangerous Florida Straits in small boats, rafts, and even inner-tubes. In addition, three ships carrying rpore than 100 Cubans were hijacked to Florida in February. Several crewmen decided

not to return to their communist homeland when freed. Dr Castro had already often hinted that he would throw open the doors of Cuba to anyone wishing to leave, as he did in the 19605, if the United States , kept encouraging illegal exits by boat hijackers. Many of the recent refugees have said they decided to risk their lives to flee after being told by foreign visitors that Dr Castro’s propaganda about a horrible life awaiting the refugees in the United States was false. “The Cuban people there believed that Cubans here were living in disgrace, that children have been killed,” Mr Mauricio Quevedo said after slipping his family out of Havana last August. Last December, Dr Castro told the National People’s Government Assembly that

his Government was undermined by economic problems, high unemployment, street crime, and agricultural disasters, as well as a “selfish indiscipline” among the Cuban people. :