Latino Link. Monday February 19 04:51 PM EST
Miami - A small flotilla of Cuban exiles will set sail from the Florida Keys
on Wednesday toward Cuba to protest the island's rationing policy.
Ramon Saul Sanchez, leader of the Democracy Movement organizing the mission,
told EFE the operation would consist of four to six vessels and would coincide
with a "pot banging" demonstration called by Cuban dissidents on the
island.
"It is a protest against rationing policies, a system used by Cuba
since the early days of the revolution to psychologically condition the
country's population not to expect anything beyond basic subsistence,"
Sanchez said by telephone from Marathon Key.
The flotilla will set sail at 7:00 a.m. Wednesday from Marina Pancho in
Marathon Key, arriving nine hours later at a point 12 miles off the coast of
Havana, where a floral symbol of solidarity is to be tossed into the sea.
"We are going to conduct a ceremony there in memory of those who
perished in the Florida Straits because of the Castro regime's policies,"
according to the activist, who has led several ocean operations against the
Cuban government.
Sanchez asked the new administration of President George W. Bush to void
presidential Decree 6867 that "limits rights to peacefully protest the
conditions in Cuba."
The decree, issued by Bill Clinton, orders the confiscation of vessels that
depart from Florida and go outside a three-mile limit with the expressed purpose
of entering Cuba's waters, Sanchez said.
On Saturday, the group Brothers to the Rescue will observe the fifth
anniversary of the downing by a Cuban fighter jet of two planes and the deaths
of four of its members, with what has become an annual flight over the site near
the Cuban coast. | 