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CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Exile activist says Cubans in floating
Buick are sent back to Cuba, car sunk
By Luisa Yanez and Tere
Figueras. lyanez@herald.com
The '59 Buick converted into a boat and
headed to Florida Keys with 11 Cuban migrants
onboard has been sunk by the U.S. Coast
Guard and those onboard will be taken back
to Cuba, according to an exile activist
in Key West.
The U.S. Coast Guard Wednesday morning
refused to comment on the fate of the car,
citing a policy not to comment on an "ongoing
mission.''
But Arturo Cobo, who ran the Cuban rafter
house in Key West in the 1990s, said he
tried to intervene on behalf of the Cubans
and was told by government sources that
it was too late.
''My sources tell me that like the truck
seven months ago, this car has also been
sunk by the Coast Guard and the people onboard
will be repatriated back to the island,''
said Cobo.
A Coast Guard source confirmed the situation
had ended but would not say what was done
with the people or their floating car.
Under U.S. immigration policy, Cubans who
make it to U.S. soil are generally allowed
to stay, while those who are stopped interdicted
at sea are usually sent back.
When another group made a similar attempt
in July to cross the Straits in a 1951 Chevy
flatbed truck, their floating truck was
sunk by the Coast Guard and the people were
repatriated.
Relatives said there were six adults and
five children in the Buick, including Marciel
Basanta López and Luis Gras Rodríguez
-- two of the people who fled Cuba in the
truck in July -- and their wives and children.
They said the group left Cuba around 8 p.m.
Monday.
They were in a 1959 tailfinned Buick that
appeared to be on some sort of floating
platform, its seafoam green nose fitted
into a boat hull. The Buick is said to have
sailed with 10 miles of Marathon early Wednesday.
Cobo had dubbed the Cubans floating on
the vehicle ''carronautas'' or car astronauts.
He is planning to open a museum of memorabilia
of items Cubans have used to escape from
island and hoped the green car used by the
group could be a show piece.
Cubans trade in pickup for Buick on
trip to U.S.
Two Cubans who tried
to make it to the U.S. in a Chevy pickup
try to make the voyage again -- in a Buick.
The fate of 11 on board is unknown.
By Tere Figueras. tfigueras@herald.com.
Posted on Wed, Feb. 04, 2004.
Two Cuban men, both of them desperate fathers
and childhood friends, plotted to make a
vintage vehicle seaworthy and took to the
Florida Straits this week, relatives said.
Again.
Tuesday, a floating Eisenhower-era automobile
spotted chugging toward U.S. soil carried
Marciel Basanta López and Luis Gras
Rodríguez, relatives said -- two
of the men whose ill-fated attempt to escape
Cuba aboard a Chevy pickup in July garnered
international headlines and a swift repatriation
to the communist island.
Seven months later, the men -- plus nine
others, including their wives and children
-- slipped once more from the shores of
their homeland in hopes of freedom, said
Basanta's cousin, Kiriat López, who
lives in Lake Worth.
This time, they drove a Buick.
''My cousin isn't crazy. He wants to be
free,'' said López, who watched in
disbelief as his cousin's face once again
flashed across the television during the
evening news. "That's how crazy he
is.''
In the Havana neighborhood of San Miguel
de Padrón, Gras' sister Valentina
awaited news of her brother and his companions.
''They are very brave,'' Valentina Gras
said. "When you are so sure of what
you have to do you cannot be afraid.''
Relatives said they knew the men were planning
a second escape attempt. Basanta's wife,
Mirlena, told relatives the family would
be leaving this week -- but didn't say how.
López called Cuba from Lake Worth
on Tuesday.
''Marciel's sister said it was them, and
that they had left in a car,'' said López,
who said the six adults and five children
left the island in a 1959 Buick around 8
p.m. Monday. "They've been waiting
the past two weeks for good weather.''
The U.S. Coast Guard would not confirm
the status of the floating car or the origin
of photos broadcast Tuesday on television
showing the vehicle chugging through the
waves.
''U.S. policy does not allow us to comment
on ongoing migrant cases until disposition
is resolved,'' said Petty Officer Carlene
Drummond, a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard's
Seventh District Command.
According to a source familiar with Coast
Guard communications, the tail-finned car
-- its hood snugly wrapped in what appeared
to be a boat prow -- was spotted northwest
of Havana moving at about five or six knots
per hour.
When the Cubans realized they had been
spotted, they climbed down from the rooftop,
into the interior, and rolled the windows
shut.
By 6 p.m. Tuesday, the car was nearly halfway
to Key West. It was unclear whether the
car's passengers had been intercepted by
Coast Guard officers, or their automotive
exploit had continued past nightfall.
Under U.S. immigration policy, Cubans who
make it to U.S. soil are generally allowed
to stay, while those who are interdicted
at sea are usually sent back.
Told that the sea-faring Cubans had reportedly
locked themselves in the car, López
exclaimed: "Good!''
''The last time, they were tricked into
giving up,'' he said. "This time, they
have experience. They don't plan to go anywhere.
Except here.''
Basanta, a one-time tae kwan do champion,
and his friends conspired for months to
outfit Gras' battered Chevy pickup, which
chugged along on a bed of floating steel
drums powered by makeshift propellers.
After it was intercepted, the Coast Guard
sank the Chevy in a hail of machine-gun
fire.
Basanta told the Herald last year that
the 12 Cubans aboard the 1951 Chevy were
misled by a Spanish-speaking Coast Guard
officer after the truck was spotted about
40 miles off of Key West on July 16.
''He said we could do things the easy way
or the hard way,'' Basanta told the Herald
in July, days after he was returned to Cuba.
The presence of Gras' toddler son convinced
the Cubans to board the Coast Guard willingly
- with the understanding, Basanta said,
that the Chevy would be returned to Cuba
with them.
Instead, the Chevy went down in a hail
of machine-gun fire. Coast Guard officials
at the time said the truck was unseaworthy.
A month later, Rear Adm. Harvey Johnson,
the Coast Guard's District Commander, cited
another reason, saying they feared the truck
would become a ''monument'' inspiring similarly
risky ventures.
But the image of the battered flatbed,
bright-green against a blue sea, had already
become a symbol to both Cubans on the island
and in exile.
Back in Cuba, Basanta's bid for political
asylum in the United States was rejected,
as were the bids of eight of the others.
Gras' application is still being processed,
but López said he had grown frustrated
with the wait.
''Their houses have been searched by Cuban
security. Marciel's driver's license was
taken away from him,'' López said.
"They are desperate, desperate men.''
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