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CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Dissidents gambled -- and probably
lost
Jim Defede. Posted on Tue,
Dec. 16, 2003 in The Miami Herald.
This is not the time of year to cross the
Florida Straits.
The winds are generally blowing north-to-south,
which means if you are trying to make it
from Cuba to Florida you'll be fighting
the current most of the way. Even worse,
the waves are rougher in the winter than
in the summer and can easily capsize a small
raft or homemade vessel.
And seven Cuban dissidents apparently decided
they had no choice but to risk such a journey
last week and set off from the city of Alamar,
east of Havana. The men are now missing
and the likelihood they will turn up alive
becomes increasingly remote.
One of the men, Barbaro Antonio Vela Crego,
was afraid he was about to be sent to prison
for 20 years because of his opposition to
the Castro government, according to Luis
Zuniga, president of the Cuban Liberty Council,
a Miami-based exile organization. Such harsh
sentences have become more common in recent
months as Cuban President Fidel Castro tries
to kill the burgeoning opposition movement.
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