Word: aranzazu
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...Cuban exiles are quick to cheer any small foray in their lopsided fight against Fidel Castro. But last week there was one blazing action in the waters off Cuba for which no one wanted to claim responsibility. It involved the 1,600-ton Spanish freighter Sierra Aranzazu, some 40 miles northwest of Great Tnagua Island in the Bahamas, bound for Havana with a cargo of garlic, cognac, chicken coops and plows...
...Sierra Aranzazu approached Cuba in the late evening hours, two small, fast boats swooped down on the vessel and raked it with repeated machine-gun bursts at a range of 20 to 30 yards. The captain and two crewmen were mortally wounded. The rest of the crew abandoned ship, which was now on fire. Fourteen hours after the attack, the lifeboat carrying all 20 crew members, eight of them wounded, two dead and one soon to die, was spotted by a U.S. Coast Guard plane, and a Dutch freighter sped to their rescue, carrying them to Great Inagua...
Although all three vehemently deny it, chances are that one of the groups staged the attack on the Sierra Aranzazu, either as a warning to nations trading with Castro, or in a case of mistaken identity, thinking it was the Cuban freighter Sierra Maestra, which had sailed through the same area the week before...
...Basque consciousness of their people, as well as certain moral freedoms generally overlooked in the rest of Spain. A year ago, during serious anti-government strikes in the Basque provinces, Spanish bishops were warning priests to tell the people that such striking was a mortal sin. One of Aranzazu's Franciscans, speaking from the pulpit, countered: "The right to strike without violence is a right granted by God as one of man's natural freedoms...
During last week's meetings with the monks of Aranzazu, pious Basque priests earnestly discussed how they might keep their old culture and religion from slipping away from the country. A few days later, they left the monastery to go down to their scattered parishes, their faith renewed by the monastery's support. Said one, caressing a small green, white and red ribbon (for the Basque national colors) pinned on his rough cassock: "While there is one Franciscan at the shrine of Our Lady of Aranzazu, the Basque culture will...