Lima hijack bid ends peacefully

Press, 1 September 1980, Page 6

Lima hijack bid ends peacefully

NZPA-Reuter Lima, Peru Cubans who seized a Braniff Airline jet in a desperate bid to get to the United States were headed for a vacation colony near Lima yesterday while the 15 people they had taken hostage awaited a flight to Los Angeles, California. The peaceful solution to the 23-hour ordeal came early yesterday when the 168 Cubans who had seized the plane freed the hostages and surrendered to authorities. The hostages spent the night in a Lima hotel awaiting travel arrangements. ■ The Cubans had threatened: to bum the plane if their demand to fly to the United States was not met, but diplomatic sources - said their determination crumbled in the face of United States Government refusal to grant them entry visas. The DC9 'jet left for Dallas/. Texas, yesterday morning without passengers, after being -examined 1 .. by Braniff technicians.

, A Braniff source said the plane was not seriously damaged. The incident began when about 400 Cubans, including entire families, ' smashed through glass doors at Jorge Chavez Airport and rushed the plane. The flight crew managed to get off but I'6 passengers were taken, hostage. One was freed early on Saturday. .. Several shots were fired in. the melee and three Cuban men who managed to get aboard were hit by bullets, authorities said. None was seriously injured. The Cubans were among refugees who left their country in May and June. Most wanted to go to the United States, and had been living in tent - refugee ■ camps since their arrival.

After sunrendering, they were taken back to the airport terminal for transport to their refugee camp at Tupac /Amaru, run "by the Red Cross, . , \ \. .. . The Peruvian-? Government said it. planned to transfer

all 600 people at the camp to the Huampani resort community 24km east of Lima. One of the ' Cubans . who had seized the plane, Pedro Fernandez Cruz, said, “President’Carter has . got to take us. He’s got to solve our problem.” One Cuban woman said, "This ‘is a political question for Carter. He must open I the doors of his country (to us) but he isn’t doing so because of the electoral campaign. Sooner or later he will have to let us in the United States.” Government sources said President Fernando Belaunde Terry had discussed the problem by telephone with President Carter, who reportedly said the Cubans would not be allowed to force their way into the United States.

But it was later reported that the American State Department had agreed to speed up decisions on the United States admitting Cuban refugees .in Peru, some of whom -had held the jetliner in Lima-