Word: havana
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...Declaring the exodus an "unprecedented emergency," President Carter called off a scheduled U.S. Navy exercise near Guantánamo Naval Base and ordered the diversion of 34 ships to help the U.S. Coast Guard assist scores of boats in distress. "If they could build a bridge that would connect Havana and Miami, there would be no one left in Cuba!" hooted one middle-aged arrival. Or almost no one, to hear the refugees. Said José Antonio Aras, 77: "President Fidel Castro will be the only one there...
...Cubans who shared those sympathies were able to sail away without opposition, as was violently demonstrated in Havana. Some 500 Cubans, mostly former political prisoners, began clamoring for U.S. visas outside the offices of the U.S. Interest Section, which represents the U.S. on the island in the absence of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Suddenly several buses pulled up, and scores of their country men jumped out. Swinging tire irons, pipes and chains, they into the throng as police stood by and watched. After 20 minutes, more police arrived and the fighting stopped, but not before a dozen were...
...lumpen" leaving Cuba. Though the attackers had come in buses belonging to the CUBAN INSTITUTE FOR FRIENDSHIP AMONG PEOPLE, there was little doubt about who was behind the assault. "It was clearly permitted, if not sponsored, by the Cuban government," charged Thomas Reston, U.S. State Department spokesman. Though Havana promised safe transport home to the squatters, most decided to remain encamped there...
Much of the confusion can be traced to the Cuban Premier, who has regularly changed the rules and played to his own interests throughout the world's latest refugee flight. When nearly 11,000 Cubans crammed into the Peruvian embassy compound in Havana last month seeking political asylum, Castro promised salidas (exit visas) to all those who could gain permission from other countries to emigrate there. But after an airlift organized by Costa Rica had evacuated 678 of the 6,250 would-be exiles accepted by eight nations, including the U.S., Castro suddenly canceled the flights. Havana instead proclaimed...
...even greater disappointment was in store for many of those who finally reached Mariel. Havana assigned only a handful of officials to log in the arriving boats and another handful to collect each craft's list of desired relatives. Typically, a boat had to wait several days for a first encounter with a government launch, and days more for its passengers...