Word: havana
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...world's latest refugee saga began three weeks ago, when an estimated 10,800 Cubans jammed into the Peruvian embassy compound in Havana seeking political asylum after guards were temporarily removed from the embassy's gates. The sight of these would-be exiles, demanding to leave Fidel Castro's so-called paradise, was deeply embarrassing to the Cuban President. With the world watching, he had no choice but to grant them exit visas. Eight nations eventually agreed to admit 6,250 of the exiles; the U.S. said that it would take 3,500, the largest single group...
...himself welcomed the first planeload of refugees. More important, Castro was furious about the bad publicity Cuba was reaping in the Latin American press. To counter it, he staged a massive rally commemorating the anniversary of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. More than a million Cubans marched through Havana, chanting "iQue se vayan!" (let them go) and hoisting signs reading ABAJO LA GUSANERA (down with the worms), a favorite Havana expression about expatriates...
...countries that had agreed to accept them. At week's end an initial group of 97 moved on to Lima, where the exhausted exiles were welcomed by Peruvian Foreign Minister Arturo Garcia y Garcia; an Iberia jet flew 50 more refugees directly from Havana to Spain. The overwhelming majority, however, indicated a preference for resettlement in the U.S. "All 10,000 would like to go to Miami," observed one Costa Rican official. "But we can't satisfy everyone...
...headlong rush for freedom was touched off after six asylum-seeking Cubans in a bus rammed through the embassy gate; in the fracas, a policeman was killed. Cuban authorities subsequently announced that they were withdrawing their guards from the embassy. Havana has had an ongoing dispute with Peru and other Latin American countries over their policy of granting political asylum to gatecrashing Cubans who manage to gain entrance to their embassies. There is some suspicion that in withdrawing guards from the Peruvian compound officials knew what would happen: thousands of unhappy Cubans from every walk of life began streaming into...
...southern African rebels or with the troops of Marxist states like Angola. But no one disputes the fact that East Germany's noncombat military role-as a provider of materiel and advisers-by now equals that of Cuba, and that its political role is even more active than Havana...