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Articles
Castro's July 13 Massacre.
By Humberto Fontova*
In the predawn darkness of July 13, 1994, 72 desperate Cubans – old and
young, male and female – sneaked aboard a decrepit but seaworthy tugboat
in Havana harbor and set off for the U.S. and the prospect of freedom. A
few miles into the turbulent sea, 30-year-old Maria Garcia felt someone
tugging her sleeve. She looked down and it was her 10-year-old son,
Juan. "Mami, look!" and he pointed behind them toward shore. "What's
those lights?"
"Looks like a boat following us, son," she stuttered while stroking his
hair. "Calm down, mi hijo (my son). Try to sleep. When you wake up,
we'll be with our cousins in a free country. Don't worry." In fact,
Maria suspected the lights belonged to Castro patrol boats coming out to
intercept them.
In seconds the patrol boats were alongside the tug and – WHACK!! – with
its steel prow, the closest patrol boat rammed the back of the tug.
People were knocked around the deck like bowling pins. But it looked
like an accident, right? Rough seas and all. Could happen to anyone,
right?
Hey, WATCH IT!" a man yelled as he rubbed the lump on his forehead. "We
have women and children aboard!" Women held up their squalling children
to get the point across. If they'd only known.
This gave the gallant Castroites nice targets for their water cannon.
WHOOSH! The water cannon was zeroed and the trigger yanked. The water
blast shot into the tug, swept the deck and mowed the escapees down,
slamming some against bulkheads, blowing others off the deck into the
five-foot waves.
"MI HIJO! MI HIJO!" Maria screamed as the water jet slammed into her,
ripping half the clothes off her body and ripping Juan's arm from her
grasp. "JUANITO! JUANITO!" She fumbled frantically around her, still
blinded by the water blast. Juan had gone spinning across the deck and
now clung desperately to the tug's railing 10 feet behind Maria as huge
waves lapped his legs.
WHACK! Another of the steel patrol boats turned sharply and rammed the
tug from the other side. Then – CRACK! another from the front! WHACK!
The one from behind slammed them again. The tug was surrounded. It was
obvious now: The ramming was NO accident. And in Cuba you don't do
something like this without strict orders from WAY above.
"We have women and children aboard!" The men yelled. "We'll turn around!
OKAY?!!"
WHACK! the Castroites answered the plea by ramming them again. And 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
sinking. Muffled yells and cries came from below. Turns out the women
and children who had scrambled into the hold for safety after the first
whack had in fact scrambled into a watery tomb.
With the boat coming apart and the water rushed in around them, some got
death grips on their children and managed to scramble or swim out. But
not all. The roar from the water cannons and the din from the boat
engines muffled most of the screams, but all around people were
screaming, coughing, gagging and sinking.
Fortunately, a Greek freighter bound for Havana had happened upon the
scene of slaughter and sped to the rescue. NOW one of the Castro boats
threw out some life preservers on ropes and started hauling people in,
pretending they'd been doing it all along.
Maria Garcia lost her son, Juanito, her husband, brother, sister, two
uncles and three cousins in the maritime massacre. In all, 43 people
drowned, 11 of them children. Carlos Anaya was 3 when he drowned, Yisel
Alvarez 4. Helen Martinez was 6 months old.
"I Hate The Sea" is the title of a gut-gripping underground essay by
Cuban dissident Rafael Contreras. It's about some young men Rafael met
on the beach near Havana. They stared out to sea, cursed it and spit
into it. "It incarcerates us," they fumed, "worse than jail bars."
Yet mankind has always been drawn to the sea. For most of us the sea
soothes, attracts, infatuates. The most expensive real estate always
faces the sea. "Water is everywhere a protection," writes anthropologist
Lionel Tiger, trying to explain the lure, "like a moat. As a species we
love it."
Yet Cubans now hate it. Che was right. The Cuban Revolution indeed
created a "New Man" – but one more psychologically crippled than even
Che imagined. In Cuba, Castro and Che's totalitarian dream gave rise to
a psychic cripple beyond the imagination of even Orwell or Huxley: the
first specimens in the history of the species to actually hate the sea.
So what's the alternative if you can't flee Cuba? Well, in 1986 Cuba's
suicide rate reached 24 per thousand – making it double Latin America's
average, making it triple Cuba's pre-Castro rate, making Cuban women the
most suicidal in the world, and making death by suicide the primary
cause of death for Cubans aged 15-48.
At that point the Cuban government ceased publishing the statistics on
the self-slaughter. The figures became state secrets. The implications
horrified even the government.
Yet all we hear about Cuba ia about the horrors at Gitmo, where the
criminals and terrorists are behind bars. On the rest of the island
these run the country.
Editor's Note:
Get Humberto Fontova's newest book, "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite
Tyrant," FREE – Click Here Now! (
http://www.newsmaxstore.com/nms/showdetl.cfm?DID=6&Product_ID=1893 )
*Humberto Fontova is author of Fidel; Hollywoods Favorite Tyrant
. described as "absolutely devastating. An enlightening read you'll
never forget" by David Limbaugh. "A remarkable book," says Phil Brennan.
"An eye-opener. Fontova explodes myth after myth." David Horowitz says:
"Humberto Fontova has performed a valuable service to the cause of
decency and human freedom. Every American should read this book."
You may reach him at
hfontova@earthlink.net
This article was sent to Net For Cuba International by Humberto Fontova,
author of Fidel; Hollywoods Favorite Tyrant on the 12th day of july
2005.
Source:
www.netforcuba.org
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