Word: castros
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...chaotic flow of refugees across the Florida Straits in dangerously crowded boats, but he had emphasized that his celebrated "open arms" policy of the previous week would still apply to close relatives of Cuban Americans already in the U.S. They could come to America, Carter said, if Fidel Castro would agree to let U.S. officials screen the would-be exiles and allow them to board American passenger vessels and chartered airliners for safer passage across the straits. First, the U.S. had to know just which of the estimated 250,000 Cubans who have applied for exit visas actually have close...
Beyond the near panic in Florida's large Cuban-American community, Carter's sudden crackdown on the flotilla chugging between Key West and Castro's designated embarkation port of Mariel produced other uncertainties. By seizing 113 boats by week's end and threatening boatowners with fines of up to $50,000 and prison terms of up to ten years, the Administration had effectively stopped the sailing of boats out of Key West. Yet some 1,500 American craft still lay in Mariel, capable of carrying an average of 45 refugees each-a potential capacity...
Under Carter's order, relayed via radio to the boat skippers in Mariel, the American boats were supposed to return to Key West without bringing any passengers. But returning pilots told harrowing tales of being forced by Cuban soldiers to take on refugees selected by Castro's government-often leaving behind relatives of the Cuban Americans who had paid for the trip. The captains were in a quandary. Some said that the people who had chartered their boats threatened their lives if they tried to leave empty. At the same time, the Cuban government threatened to levy...
...Cuba remained the most urgent cause of worry. The State Department ordered 17 of 20 remaining staffers and their dependents out of Havana, at least temporarily, as Castro whipped up anti-American sentiment before staging a mass rally in the streets of Havana on Saturday. While speakers heatedly denounced the U.S., the crowd relished the rhetoric but refrained from attacking the former U.S. embassy building-the last significant symbol of official American representation in Havana...
...fishermen were promptly jailed. The next day, two Cuban MiGs repeatedly swept low over the settlement, terrifying the residents. A Cuban helicopter carrying soldiers touched down briefly near the town. All the Cuban aircraft then flew off, having made the intended point: Bahama had better release the fishermen. The Castro government later claimed that the Flamingo had been mistaken for "a pirate ship." Bahama's Prime Minister Lynden Pindling scoffed at that excuse, noting that the Flamingo had been flying two Bahamian flags and was easily identifiable as a naval vessel. Said Pindling: "Our boats...