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NEWS
Cubans in Miami desperate for word on families feared lost at sea
By Laura Wides-Munoz | The
Associated Press
5:06 PM EST, December 31, 2007
http://www.sun-sentinel.com
HIALEAH - This was supposed to be the year Luis Bazan celebrated New
Year's with his wife and young sons in the U.S. Bazan left Cuba for
Florida nearly two years ago on a hand-wrought wooden boat. On Nov. 24,
his family and about 40 others, including a dozen young children,
boarded a speedy fishing boat to make the same journey.
Bazan spoke to his wife on a borrowed cell phone shortly after they
began the dangerous trip across the Florida Straits. That was the last
he heard from her.
``My only drop of hope is that the boat landed somewhere in the Bahamas
and that they haven't been able to call,'' Bazan said recently as he sat
in his immaculate one-room Hialeah apartment, tracing his fingers over
photos of his boys, 8-year-old Yasel and 2-year-old Yarlon.
More likely, Bazan's wife and sons met the same fate as thousands of
other Cubans migrants who have perished at sea trying to reach the U.S.
since Cuban President Fidel Castro took power in 1959.
Relatives have reported nearly 70 migrants aboard three boats have died
or been lost in the Florida Straits in the last two months alone,
according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
``In recent months and recent days, we've seen a very alarming loss of
life,'' said U.S. Coast Guard Spokesman Chris O'Neil.
Days before Christmas, another high-speed boat carrying up to 25 people
capsized a few miles off the northern coast of Cuba. The Cuban
government said two people died. Family members in the U.S. told the
media the casualty numbers were higher and blamed Cuban law enforcement.
O'Neil said investigators have little to go on because the U.S.
relatives aren't talking to them.
On Saturday, the Coast Guard suspended a 48-hour search for yet another
boat with at least three migrants aboard.
U.S. officials link the increase in apparent casualties to an uptick of
Cubans leaving the island.
In 2007, U.S. officials stopped about 3,200 Cubans at sea, up from about
2,300 the year before. It was the largest number of interdictions since
the 1994 rafter crisis that saw 37,000 Cubans attempt to reach Florida
after Castro briefly opened the island's borders.
O'Neil attributes the recent exodus to a variety of factors, including
months of mild weather, high-tech smuggling operations and concern among
Cubans over the future of their country without the ailing Castro. The
communist leader, who has long been a thorn in the side of U.S.
presidents, ceded power to his brother last year.
Under U.S. policy, Cubans who reach U.S. land are generally allowed to
stay under the so-called ``wet-foot, dry-foot policy.'' Without Castro,
Cubans could lose their preferential treatment if relations between the
two countries improve.
Bazan wasn't thinking about politics when he left his small village in
Mantanzas in 2006.
``I came for everything, for freedom and to drag my family out of
miserable poverty,'' he said.
He found an apartment in this Miami suburb and a job unloading packages
at a cargo transport company. In his free time he sent packages home and
waited for his family's arrival.
``I would make video tapes every month, playing and telling them stories
so that they could see me. I left my little one when he was about six
months, and he could pick me out of a photo album,'' Bazan said.
Eventually he secured a spot for his family on a high-speed boat
chartered by a recent fellow Cuban immigrant. Bazan and other relatives
of those on that boat said they never paid for the trip, which would be
a federal crime. The trip wasn't expected to take more than a day in
clear weather.
Bazan was so sure his family completed the crossing and was being
processed by U.S. immigration authorities that he didn't call the Coast
Guard for nearly two weeks, he said.
Once he did call authorities, the Coast Guard searched the route the
boat was supposed to take but found nothing. A week later, Bazan
chartered a small plane to fly over the route, but also saw no signs of
the boat.
O'Neil said it's unlikely those on the boat are alive. Someone would
have contacted relatives in the U.S. by now.
Coast Guard officials want to prevent more drownings but say they can't
without more help from the Cuban-American community.
``We need the community to say, 'This is not acceptable anymore. It's
not acceptable to continue to pay people to subject our relatives, our
loved ones and our friends to these dangerous conditions. It's no longer
acceptable to see this loss in life,''' O'Neil said.
Meanwhile, the uncertainty over the fate of those who left Cuba on Nov.
24. eats away at their loved ones.
Bazan was briefly taken to a psychiatric ward after authorities feared
he was suicidal. He says he is ready to face whatever the future may
hold, but there will be none of the New Year's celebrations he hoped for
this year.
``How can I go and eat at a buffet until I know if my family exists or
not?'' he said. ``How can I celebrate anything until I know what
happened to them?''
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