LAS TUNAS, March 2 (Juan Téllez Rodríguez) - Three rafters who
returned to land after an unsuccessful attempt to leave Cuba by their own means
said that approximately 50 police and State Security agents beat them with
truncheons and sticks after they made them lie face down on the ground.
Yosvanis Peña Velázquez, a resident of Puerto Padre, on the
north coast of eastern Cuba, said that he and two friends tried to leave the
island February 3 in a raft they had built with some boards and four tractor
inner tubes to which they had adapted an outboard motor.
He said they left before dawn, and that at about 11 a.m. they were
intercepted by the Cuban coast guard approximately four miles from land. The
coastguardsmen tried to persuade them to return, he said, and gave up after two
hours, returning to port. Later, when he estimates they were about 10 miles from
the Cuban coast, the
coastguardsmen returned. This time, he said, they threatened them with a
beating when they returned. "Don’t think what happened in ’99 is
going to happen again," he remembered they yelled, referring to a group of
rafters whom the people of Puerto Padre took to the streets to support in that
year.
"We decided to return to land because the engine broke down," Peña
said, reaching land at about 9 p.m. "We were detained by approximately 50
agents, between police and State Security, who made us lie face down and beat us
with truncheons and sticks."
Peña said that later they were all handcuffed and taken to the State
Security headquarters in Puerto Padre, where they were kept for 24 hours, except
for one of them named Julio, who was kept for 48 because he was accused of
masterminding
the operation.
"We asked for medical attention," said Peña. "In the
Guillermo Domínguez hospital we were seen by an orthopedist, Numancy, who
certified we had light injuries from the beating."
Peña said they had tried to leave because the Cuban government’s
totalitarian system represses every liberty and its disastrous economic policies
have the people immersed in horrible misery.
Versión original
en español
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