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Yahoo! February 10, 2003.
Boat Used by Defectors Given Back to Cuba
MIAMI, 10 (AP) - A patrol boat sailed to Key West by four defecting Cuban
coast guardsmen has been returned to authorities of the island nation, State
Department officials said Monday.
The boat was turned over Sunday, department spokesman Robert Zimmerman said.
There was no immediate word if Cuban officials came to Florida to pick it up or
if U.S. officials delivered it; Zimmerman said details would be released later
in Washington.
A spokesman at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington did not immediately
return a phone call seeking comment Monday. Cuban officials in Havana also had
no immediate response.
The four Cuban coast guardsmen docked the patrol boat at a Key West resort
before dawn Friday, walked into town and surrendered to a police officer.
They told police they made a last-minute decision to come to the United
States while they were on patrol during the night.
Police turned the men over to the Border Patrol.
The American government allows most Cubans who make it to U.S. soil to stay
in the country and repatriates those who are picked up at sea.
In November, eight migrants flew a Cuban government biplane to Key West. The
Cuban government demanded the plane's return, but a judge ordered the aircraft
auctioned to partially pay a $27.1 million settlement Cuba owes the ex-wife of a
Cuban spy.
Cuba Wants U.S. to Repatriate Defectors
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA, 9 (AP) - U.S. officials must repatriate four Cuban coast guardsmen
who defected last week to the United States, a senior Cuban official said
Sunday.
Ricardo Alarcon, president of the parliament, said all four men and the
patrol boat they defected in should be returned to Cuba under U.S.-Cuba accords
from 1994 and 1995 aimed at promoting legal migration between the nations.
"The United States has to return the boat and the people," Alarcon
said.
To allow the men and the craft to stay in U.S. territory is "a
violation of the migration accords, which are very clear in this respect,"
he said.
Alarcon's comments were the first government reaction to the defection of
the four coast guardsmen, who docked their patrol boat at a Key West, Fla.,
resort before dawn Friday, walked into town and surrendered to a police officer.
The boat still was flying the Cuban flag when police found it docked at Key
West's Hyatt Marina Resort. Officers found two automatic rifles and ammunition
on the boat and took a holstered handgun from one guardsman.
The guardsmen told police they were patrolling after midnight and made a
last-minute decision to go to the United States.
The U.S. Border Patrol continued interviewing the defectors at an
undisclosed location Sunday, spokesman Keith Roberts said in a message left at
his office. There was no further comment.
The American government currently allows most Cubans who make it to U.S.
soil to stay in the country, but repatriates those who are picked up at sea.
Castro tells international educators conference education can help
resolve social problems
HAVANA, 8 (AP) - President Fidel Castro told a group of educators from
around the world that education can create a better world by helping to resolve
social problems, such as the nagging racial discrimination that still exists in
Cuba.
Closing the international educators conference here on Friday night, Castro
told hundreds of participants that over four decades his socialist government
can boast high marks for its primary school programs. But he said secondary
education here needs serious improvement.
Beginning in early 2002, Cuba launched a campaign to improve conditions at
its primary schools, but reforms for the older students are still pending.
Cuba's secondary school program will be radically improved, Castro declared.
"The future developing of our education will have enormous political,
social and human connotations," the Cuban leader said.
Despite the huge changes that the 1959 revolution made in Cuban society,
some social problems have not been completely eliminated, including racial
discrimination, Castro acknowledged.
"While science shows unquestionably the real equality that exists among
human beings, discriminations lives on," especially among the island's
poorest groups, Castro said. | 
