Published Friday, August 11, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Activist: Executions rise in Cuba
HAVANA -- (AP) -- The application of the death penalty appears to be increasing in Cuba, where a human rights group said it has proof of at least 21 executions in 1999.
Elizardo Sánchez, president of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, on Thursday released a list of names of individuals allegedly executed by firing squad, along with the name of their provinces of origin. Each case was confirmed by the slain person's
relatives, he said.
The majority were convicted murderers, Sánchez said, adding that the state-owned media did not report on the executions.
The independent commission keeps track of political prisoners on the island. It opposes the death penalty and tries to determine the number of executions.
It was impossible to confirm Sánchez's figures. The Foreign Ministry's official spokesman, Alejandro González, did not return telephone calls.
Although foes of the Cuban regime in the United States use the execution figures as an index of the growing repression on the island, the application of the death penalty also has grown in the United States.
Cuba applies the death penalty in some cases of homicide, generally when homicide accompanies another crime, such as robbery or child rape.
Two bodies found off Keys
BY LISA FUSS And JENNIFER BABSON. lfuss@herald.com.
LOOE KEY -- Coast Guard officers recovered the mutilated body of a presumed Cuban migrant from shark-infested waters early Thursday morning, after failing to retrieve the body of another person also found floating off the Florida Keys.
The sole recovery came after two sport fishermen stumbled across two floating bodies early Thursday morning, 12 nautical miles south of Looe Key.
The fishermen told the Coast Guard that they saw the second body being dragged under the water by a tiger shark.
No identification was found on the corpse that was recovered. And after a daylong hunt for survivors -- and any boats or rafts that may have carried the victims across the Florida Straits -- Coast Guard officials called off a 200-square-mile search that included assistance from the U.S. Border
Patrol and state agencies at 4 p.m. Thursday.
Authorities were unable to determine how long the naked body, whose arms were missing, had been in the water.
In the dead man's ear a small, silver hoop earring still dangled. His feet were still encased in white sneakers bearing the brand name "Erke,'' a popular make of shoes in China, which exports goods to Cuba.
The body and remains were transported to shore by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and turned over to the Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office. An autopsy was scheduled Thursday, as Monroe County Sheriff's Office detectives continued to investigate.
Authorities are unsure whether the bodies are linked to one of two Cuban refugee landings Wednesday in the Keys. A Cuban migrant found on shore near Long Key told police that he had been aboard a boat that sank and had been with other refugees. The man, who was suffering from hypothermia, was
treated at a local hospital and turned over to the U.S Border Patrol.
Despite speculation that the bodies were those of Cubans fleeing to the United States, authorities say they may never know how they died.
"It's certainly a possibility [that the deceased were Cuban refugees] but we have no way of knowing unless a live refugee comes forward and says, `That person was with me out there,' '' said Becky Herrin, spokeswoman for the Monroe County Sheriff's Office.
By noon, however, the tale of the supposed refugees had already made its way from Key West to Miami, as Cuban exiles telephoned friends in the Keys to inquire whether the bodies might be those of loved ones.
"I think it's a natural thing, you constantly wonder, `Is it somebody that I know, is it my relatives, is it my brother, is it my sister?' '' said Ramón Saúl Sánchez, a Miami-based exile leader who began receiving phone calls about the discovery before noon on Thursday.
Sometimes, concerned relatives anticipating a smuggled crossing will even telephone the U.S. Border Patrol, though as of Thursday afternoon, a spokesman said no one had called about this case.
"When a smuggling venture is late in arriving, sometimes the relatives stateside will say, `We were expecting so-and-so to show up, and they haven't yet,' '' said Dan Geoghegan, Miami Border Patrol sector assistant chief.
The Border Patrol estimates that only 150 migrants have perished trying to make the sometimes rough 90-mile crossing since 1996, while 4,642 migrants have successfully made land -- the majority of whom have been smuggled for a price in recent years.
For many exiles, it was a gruesome reminder of the ocean's perils.
"This happens all the time, I assure you the ocean bottom is filled with hundreds of bodies,'' said Felipe Del Cueto of Miami, his voice cracking.
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