Word: boatlifts
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...eerie replay of the events that led up to the 1980 Mariel boatlift, when 125,000 disaffected Cubans flooded the U.S. Then, Castro had responded to Jimmy Carter's blanket offer of asylum by opening the port of Mariel for any boat that wanted to leave. And last week Castro was again quick to play his trump card. He toured the scene of the rioting in a jeep and later appeared on Cuban TV to accuse the U.S. of provoking the incident. "I do not want to say there will be another Mariel," he said. "But either they take serious...
...Clinton Administration says Fidel Castro's weekend threat to loose another Mariel-style boatlift on the U.S. is hollow. The U.S. Coast Guard may not be so convinced: Guard vessels sighted three more boats leaving Cuba today after picking up 230 frightened Cuban refugees over the weekend. The recent exodus was spurred by unrest in Havana Friday. TIME Miami bureau chief Cathy Booth says Castro, frustrated by tension during one of the Cuban economy's worst months, may let the malcontents go. In Miami, she adds, Cuban exiles went on the radio to urge their island brethren to stay...
...Pigs invasion, have rescued a total of 1,286 men, women and children; the oldest was 77, the youngest a five-day-old infant. Last year, as economic conditions worsened in Cuba, the number of rafters rose to 3,656 -- the highest since the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Often the rafts are empty: by some estimates, 1 in 4 balseros die -- and the rescuers themselves are not without risk. Three Brothers have crashed; all lived, though one is paralyzed. Cuban MiG jets sometimes buzz them. "You have to be a bit adventurous and nutty to do it," says pilot Carlos Costa...
Bush seems haunted by Jimmy Carter's experience with the 1980 Mariel boatlift, during which 124,815 Cubans washed up on Florida's shores -- and the Democratic President lost the election. "Mariel definitely left a shadow. Washington has been nervous all year about the Haitian influx," contends Father Richard Ryscavage, head of the U.S. Catholic Conference's Office of Migration and Refugee Services, which provides social and legal services to some 3,500 Haitian refugees...
...allowed to visit relatives in the U.S. The State Department knows it will be flooded with ; requests for tourist visas if the age limit is lifted. "The Cubans are trying to embarrass us," grouses one official. The U.S. suspects that the dictator plans to repeat the 1980 Mariel boatlift, in which he exported malcontents and hardened criminals to southern Florida. "We've been on the blacklist because we don't allow free travel," responds a Havana policymaker. "Now we are doing what they demand, and still we're bad guys...