Cuba's Floating Emigrants

Hundreds of Cubans have been sent back to their country in recent months by United States Coast Guards and Mexican officials. Many are undeterred, and say they will make further attempts to sail away to freedom.

The “balseros”, called after the home-made “balsa” or raft that many build, head for the United States, Mexico or other Central American states. The boats are often overloaded and unseaworthy, and far from all make it to shore.

A conscript serving in the Cuban border guards service says about 250 “balseros” were arrested at sea between July and October this year – some of them by his colleagues, and others by the US Coast Guard.

Since 1995, the Coast Guard has implemented a policy known as “wet feet, dry feet”, under which Cubans who actually make it onto American soil can remain and apply for permanent residence. Those intercepted at sea – with “wet feet” – are returned to Cuba.

On November 1, the Coast Guard repatriated 32 people whom it picked up from two boats within a couple of days of each other in mid-October.

In Mexico, the National Institute for Migration says 264 Cubans were sent back home in the first nine months of this year.

Pedro Luis Hernández is a veteran “balsero” with 11 failed attempts behind him. At any hour of the day, he says, “someone, somewhere on the coast is making an attempt to leave the country illegally.”

“Sailing 140 kilometres north [to Florida] to an uncertain fate, at the mercy of waves and hungry sharks… is nothing compared to hanging around the streets watching your youth go,” he said. “A shark might not be trying to bite you there, but the [police] unit chief will.”

David Alonso, another “balsero” who has made repeated attempts to get to Florida, says it makes a big difference who catches you. He says the US officers are bound to ensure “respect and protection for repatriates”, whereas their Cuban counterparts handcuffed him, insulted him and threatened him with jail unless he told them where he sailed from and who helped him.

Once “balseros” have been intercepted by either Cuban or US coast guards, they are handed over to the Department for State Security and taken for interrogation to the Tricornia Military Unit in the Habana del Este municipality, in Havana province.

According to Alonso, the experience is not as bad as the fine that follows.

“When you’re repatriated, the risk of going to jail… is very remote. There’s some shouting and insults from the Department of State Security designed to provoke you, but even then you feel safe,” he said. “Three months later, all of us [arrested] received a fine of 3,000 pesos [120 dollars] that we to pay within a month.”

René López, an independent lawyer who runs a legal consultancy in Havana, explains that under a government order issued 1999, such fines are imposed not for illegal emigration, but for sailing without license and building a vessel illegally.

A port authority official who gave his first name as Alfredo said permits were not available for boat construction or navigation. Questioned further on the subject, he said angrily that the decisions of the Cuban Revolution must not be questioned.

Alonso said he would make further attempts to leave by boat, since he could be imprisoned if he did not pay his last fine.

“I have no chance of getting employment because I’m not ‘trustworthy’, and I can’t pay the fine. I’d rather die in the attempt to reach the land of freedom than spend four years in jail.”

Gerardo Younel Ávila Perdomo is a photojournalist with the Hablemos Press Information Centre.