Published Wednesday, January 31, 2001, in the
Miami Herald
Eyewitness describes MiG attack
Testimony stirs emotions at trial of suspected spies
By Gail Epstein Nieves. gepstein@herald.com
It was 3:23 p.m. on Feb. 24, 1996, and First Officer Bjorn Johansen was on
the bridge of the cruise ship Majesty of the Seas as it crossed the Straits of
Florida headed for Miami.
Suddenly Johansen saw a small explosion in the distance. The fireball was
much bigger than a flare. Debris fell from the sky, but he couldn't make out
what it was.
He didn't know it then, but what he was seeing was the first of two Brothers
to the Rescue aircraft being blasted into the sea.
Johansen's eyewitness account of the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown
resounded through the courtroom in the Cuban spy trial Tuesday, as relatives of
the four dead fliers watched and listened in anguished silence.
Four minutes after the first explosion, Johansen witnessed history a second
time. Over international waters once again, he saw a Cuban jet fighter tracking
a small Cessna that was flying north -- away from Cuba. Johansen saw the MiG-29
fire a missile. About five seconds later, the missile hit its target.
"The [Cessna] plane was consumed by fire and many pieces fell into the
sea,'' testified Johansen, now a captain. "There were no warning shots.
There was no other maneuver other than lining up for a direct hit on that
plane.''
Soon the cruise ship passed by the shootdown spot, now marked only by an oil
slick.
"There was not a chance of survival in a situation like that,''
Johansen testified.
Indeed, there were no survivors. Killed in the downings of two Cessnas were
Brothers to the Rescue volunteers Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario de la Peña
and Armando Alejandre.
A third plane piloted by Brothers founder José Basulto was not
harmed.
The dead men's remains were never located. Some of their mothers and sisters
and brothers sit through the trial every day. Some grimace or close their eyes
during painful testimony.
Of the five men on trial, only one faces charges related to the shootdowns.
He is Gerardo Hernández, considered to be one of two spy supervisors.
Hernández is charged with conspiracy to commit murder for allegedly
giving Cuban authorities the flight plan of the two Brothers Cessnas while
instructing other spies to shun the doomed flight. Defense attorney Paul McKenna
has said the Federal Aviation Administration provided that same flight plan to
Cuba.
On Tuesday, under direct examination by prosecutor John Kastrenakes,
Johansen estimated that the first Cessna was 20 nautical miles from Cuba and the
second Cessna 22.8 nautical miles from Cuba when the shootdowns occurred.
That placed both sites well outside the jurisdictional limits of Cuba: 12
nautical miles, or 13.8 land miles, Johansen said.
Havana -- and the defense -- disagree with that assessment, although
independent investigators for the United Nations reached the same conclusion.
Johansen said he based his estimates on global positioning satellite
read-outs and navigational charts that enabled him to fix the position of the
Majesty of the Seas in comparison to where he saw the explosions. The vessel was
24.5 nautical miles off the coast of Cuba when the first shootdown took place,
he said.
In June 1996, four investigators for the U.N.'s International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO) concluded that Cuba shot down the Cessna 337 aircraft in
international airspace and not over Cuban waters, as Havana claims.
In the Cuban version of events, the MiG pilot and Cuban radar tracks given
to ICAO claimed that both Brothers planes were heading south, toward Havana,
when they were shot down.
The MiG pilot also gave ICAO investigators a detailed account of how he made
warning passes at the two Cessnas before firing his air-to-air rockets -- coming
up behind them from the left and then making "a combat turn'' in front and
to the right.
ICAO's report said neither of the downed Cessnas reported seeing such a
maneuver, "and it was reasonable to expect that such an encounter would
have been reported to the other Cessnas.''
ICAO used the known positions of the Majesty of the Seas and fishing boat
Tri-Liner, whose crews witnessed the attacks, to locate the incidents at 10.3 to
11.5 miles outside Cuba's 12-mile limit.
Nominee's Cuba outlook under scrutiny
By Carol Rosenberg. crosenberg@herald.com
Much of the nation may see John Ashcroft as a classic conservative, a
part-time lay Pentecostal preacher who opposes abortion and lost his Senate seat
to a Democrat who died in a plane crash.
But here in South Florida he is perhaps best known as author of The Ashcroft
Amendment, legislation that sought to liberalize food and medical sales to Cuba
at a time of anxiety over the Elián González episode.
So Cuba watchers are wondering: If confirmed as President Bush's top law
enforcer, how would he wield those portions of his authority that involve U.S.
ties to Havana?
"In terms of setting policy, like any other area that he has to work
in, you could have more or less zealous prosecution of different kinds of
activities,'' said political scientist Max Castro of the University of Miami's
North-South Center.
For example, he said, an Attorney General John Ashcroft might "cast a
wider net'' to prosecute people who operate here as unregistered agents of Cuba.
Or a law-and-order Ashcroft might "try to get Congress to make changes
in the Cuban Adjustment Act,'' and seek a "more consistent policy'' than
the so-called wet-foot, dry-foot interpretation.
At his confirmation hearings, senators' questions focused on Ashcroft's
views on civil rights and abortion. No Cuba questions came up, said José
Cárdenas of the Cuban American National Foundation in Washington.
But Cárdenas sees Ashcroft as a man with whom the powerful lobby can
do business. "He has an outward distaste for Fidel Castro,'' he said,
weighing his words carefully.
Even while Ashcroft was advocating erosion of the embargo, Cárdenas
said, "he had a very nuanced approach to the issues.''
The senator maintained warm ties with the foundation, he said, and drew the
line at opposing an effort to lift Cuba travel restrictions.
"We have the fullest confidence that Mr. Ashcroft will return to a
vigorous prosecution of U.S. policy toward Cuba,'' Cárdenas said. "We
have every confidence that he will enforce the law in terms of the embargo and
restrictions on travel to Cuba.''
Experts on the office say the Cabinet member who presides over an estimated
125,000 bureaucrats and border guards, attorneys and FBI agents, can have
considerable influence over several key portions of Cuba policy -- notably some
prosecutions as well as immigration issues.
Attorneys general can arbitrate so-called discretionary issues, said Florida
State Rep. Dan Gelber, a former deputy U.S. attorney and former chief counsel to
Sen. Sam Nunn. But, more typically "a certain level of these Cuba policies
will be decided by the secretary of state, the president and by the Congress.''
An example: Janet Reno said she followed "the facts and the law'' last
year when she decided to support Immigration Commissioner Doris Meissner's
decision to reunite Elián González with his father -- and
ultimately dispatched armed federal forces on April 22 to remove the 6-year-old
child from his great-uncle's house.
So, would an Attorney General Ashcroft act similarly?
"Would he have sent him back? I have no idea,'' said a veteran
Republican staffer on Capitol Hill who has long worked on Cuba issues. "I
do know that when I read about it,'' -- that Bush had chosen the Missourian for
Justice -- "I thought, 'Wow, Ashcroft's bad on Cuba' and that hurts.''
Moreover, the staffer said, there are no early signs of a shift in Cuba
policy: "We'd like migration policy stopped,'' he said, a reference to the
practice of interdicting Cubans seeking to reach U.S. shores illegally.
It is, in fact, unclear where Ashcroft stood on the Elián
controversy. No comment could be found in last year's Congressional Record.
But he did tell the St. Louis Post Dispatch after the seizure stirred
trash-burning unrest in Miami that he supported an inquiry into the raid.
"It tears at one's heart to see a young child at the center of such a
controversy, that a boy is subjected to such a tragic set of circumstances. . .
. I want to look at the outcome of those inquiries to see whether or not [the
raid] was necessary,'' he was quoted as saying April 25.
More clear, however, has been his position on the embargo. Ashcroft offered
the so-called Ashcroft Amendment in 1999.
Although it has since been watered down, it sought to permit unrestricted
food and medical sales to countries on the State Department's sponsors-of-terror
list -- a move that embargo advocates now characterize as simple pork politics,
a sop to win reelection against a tough challenge from the now deceased Gov. Mel
Carnahan in November.
"Agribusiness'' gave Ashcroft's campaign $283,837 for the 2000 election
cycle, according to Washington's Center for Responsive Politics. Rival
Carnahan's receipts were $79,270 from the same sector, which include
agricultural services and products, crop production and basic processing, as
well as poultry, eggs and tobacco.
Holland & Knight attorney John Hogan, Reno's 1993-98 chief of staff,
described Ashcroft as "hard to read'' on how he might weigh in on the Cuba
issue. "Part of the reason . . . is because of the conservativeness I was
somewhat surprised he offered the Ashcroft Amendment.'' Rather, he said, he
expected that he "would be somewhat in line with Jesse Helms on Cuba.''
Furthermore, given his Republican credentials and Midwestern sensibilities,
he might emerge as tough on protecting U.S. borders.
Ashcroft, 58, has visited the island only once, Bush transition spokeswoman
Mindy Tucker said Tuesday, in response to an inquiry. He was a child, she said,
and traveled there with his father -- before the revolution.
Cuban-Czech ties on agenda
Connections between Cuba and Czechoslovakia are the focus of a free lecture
at 7 p.m. on Thursday at the Wolfsonian-FIU, 1001 Washington Ave., Miami Beach.
Marifeli Perez-Stable, a professor of sociology and politics at the State
University of New York and currently a visiting professor at FIU, will discuss
how the formerly Communist Czechoslovakia's ``Velvet Revolution'' and the fall
of the U.S.S.R. related to Cuba's own crisis in 1989. The talk comes at a key
moment in Czech-Cuban relations following the Jan. 12 arrest in Cuba of two
Czech citizens for subversion.
Perez-Stable will make references to the Wolfsonian's present show, Dreams
and Disillusion: Karel Teige and the Czech Avant-Garde. Information:
305-531-1001
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 