Not to change the subject, but the Carnival of Revolutions is up, and you're in it.

http://soapgun.blogspot.com/2005/07/welcome-to-carnival-of-revolutions.html

George, This installment is absolutely gripping and heartbreaking. No Cubans should be taken to Guantanomo, this policy is shameful.

Kathleen, it only gets worse from here on out. Stay tuned...

BTW, that policy was in place thanks to those lovers of freedom, Bill and Janet.

George, I know, but why hasn't it been changed?

That, my dear, is the $64,000 question...

I am posting this anonymously for fear of retribution in my workplace. I have served on Cuban migrant ops missions for the Coast Guard and the treatment that the Cubans receive is at times abhorrent.

The food rations are paltry--exactly as described in the story. Even when there are small children they are only fed a small amount of rice and beans- once at 9 am and again at six pm. Exceptions are rarely made and it depends completely on the commanding officer. If the CO makes exceptions he/she is doing so at their own risk--the food rations policy is determined by the commandant general of the Coast Guard. The poor hungry and tired Cubans(especially the children) are subjected to seeing crew members drinking sodas and eating candy bars. If they are unlucky enough to be on board during a special celebration they might be treated to the smell of steaks being grilled on the lower deck. More sensitive crew members occasionally sneak the Cubans packets of sugar to help kill the hunger but again they do this at their own risk.

At times Cubans picked up by the Cutters are way off course, dehydrated, and would surely have died if not for the Coast Guard. These same people will tell you that when they are sent back to Cuba they will begin planning their next attempt to make it to la Yuma. We've picked up people who have made five or six attempts. So any idea of this policy being effective in discouraging Cubans from trying to come over is clearly wrong.

Something should be done about the policy as a whole but in the interim the treatment the Cubans receive on board the Cutters should be improved. It's embarrassing to me as an American. A few scoops of rice and beans twice a day from the richest country in the world.

Kudos to anonymous, and even more, of course, to George's narrator. For what it's worth, the Commandant for The United States Coast Guard is Admiral Thomas H. Collins. This is where you can email him about rescued Cubans and their nutritional and medical treatment:

http://www.uscg.mil/Commandant/comdnt.html

And George says it only gets worse from here. That's too bad. We are the greatest country on Earth, bar none. We can do better. We must, we must, we must, especially for these people, who have more courage, ingenuity, and patience than most of us.

I grew up in front of the ocean, on the ocean, in the ocean. (I was spearfishing when I was ten years old.) The ocean is a harsh mistress. It almost killed me more than once, and I just came at it from the beach. You'd think the admiral would know better.

JdB

Nos mascan pero no nos tragan.

If we opened the flood gates and encouraged the rest of the good people to leave Cuba, we could destroy Castro quickly. He is at the point, I think, of the Romanian dictator in possibly 1987, jsut two years before he was executed on national TV. If Bush would end the embargo on Cuban refugees, and possibly open up our borders to Venezuelans, we could get in a good lick against these two tyrants.
Your story should be much more widely shared. If only it could be gotten to Pres. Bush. It is well written, well told and deeply moving.
I look forward to hearing more.

Hunter,

Castro uses immigration as a pressure release. Housing shortage? let loose a wave of immigrants. Food shortage? same thing? The people that are most desperate and marginalized are the ones that that leave. What we need is for the pressure in castro's pressure cooker reach the boiling point.

I'M PISSED OFF, I'M REALLY PISSED OFF!

Yes, I am pissed off. I am pissed off at Cubans! I am pissed off at Cubans in Miami. I am pissed off at Cubans in Florida!

I am not pissed off at Val, nor George, nor Rafael, nor Mario, nor at Agustin, no, I'm not. I'm pissed off at those who are not taking a more active part in telling the story of what is going on in the Straits. I am pissed off at the rich Cubans, even if they're running drugs (and some of them probably do that), and the honest ones and hardworking ones, for not doing all they can to get that story out.

I'm pissed at the Los Angeles Times, for the lies, because they lie when they don't get to the truth and tell it. I am pissed off at the New York Times, because of the lying s.o.b.s that run that Newspaper. It's a lie to ignore what is going on in the Straits. I am pissed off at the Miami Herald, because they could have a boat trailing the Coast Guard ships in those waters and take photographs to publish all over America. I am pissed off at Time Magazine, which I once read every week, and Newsweek, which I read now and then, and all the others for what is going on out there that they conceal by ignoring it. I am pissed at Liberal hypocrites, g--damn friggin' Liberal hypocrites who worship the world's biggest dickhead in Havana, and I am pissed at the last administration, the Clinton one, for putting these policies in place.

The Liberals will trail a whaling ship for weeks to save the life of a damn whate, but here they've got hundreds of people risking their lives to gain their freedom and they ignore it. What dickheads they are! Absolute Liberal Dickheads.

It does not sound like you're putting in enough detail, even though what you've said is horror enough. Why are we giving these hungry people so little food? I know, so that they won't tell their freinds that floating in the water a day or two can earn them some good food for a few days, to feed hungry people, starving people. Val, George, I am sick thinking that our Coast Guard men would mistreat people who have risked their lives to escape, that at the very least we can treat them kindly, even if we do return them to their feared reign of terror in Havana.

Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are doing all they can to win hearts and minds, while our media do all they can to subvert their efforts. But, it is so difficult for me to believe that our Coast Guard men can do just the opposite; there is something wrong and believe me, there will be a change. WE can make it happen.

Val, how many are they picking up every day from the ocean? It sounds like several hundred a day. Do you get that understanding from it? What they're trying to do is to discourage the influx from the whole area, as I see it. Yet, there has to be some other way to do it. One would be to give each rafter a gun and set them back ashore in Cuba.

Howarde,
I did not mean to imply that the men and women of the Coast Guard intentionally mistreat Cuban migrants because that is not the case. As members of a military service they follow orders and in this case the orders come from the very top--the food rations are beyond their control. The other instances described usually are committed out of ignorance and when pointed out to the individuals, they usually feel quite bad and change the behavior. The fact is that most people don't know the conditions that Cubans are fleeing.

Again in no way did I mean to imply that the rank and file of the Coast Guard mistreat Cubans. On the contrary as I mentioned in my first post they save Cubans lives on a daily basis. The unfortunate part is that they then must return them back to Cuba because of the wet foot/dry foot policy. I think that we should be pissed off at the people in charge of making the decisions in terms of policy and protocols for the Cubans picked up at sea.

Someone can tell me if are the balseros still taken to Guantanamo or sent back right away??

Loto,
They are sent directly back to Cuba about 95% of the time. On the Cutter they are interviewed by an immigration asylum officer and if they have a very solid claim for asylum they are taken to Guantanamo but they make it very tough.