Feb. 25, 1996
Cuba downs two planes from exile group
by Rene Sanchez
Washington Post
WASHINGTON - Cuban fighter jets yesterday apparently shot down two private planes that belong to a Cuban
exile group based in Miami, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. Coast Guard last night dispatched helicopters and boats to scour the waters about 12 miles north of Cuba for
the wreckage of the planes, which were apparently shot down after 3 p.m. while searching for refugees fleeing the
country on rafts.
President Clinton ordered U.S. military forces to protect search-and-rescue operations.
"I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms," Clinton said in Seattle.
Coast Guard officials said they were looking for four people who were believed to be inside the two aircraft when the
incident occurred. A third private plane that had accompanied the others on the flight was not shot down, officials said.
The planes are part of a Miami group known as Brothers to the Rescue, a squad of volunteer pilots who for the past five
years have patrolled the Florida Strait regularly in hope of finding and saving refugees attempting to escape from Cuba
on makeshift rafts.
Jose Basulto, founder of the group, appeared shaken when he met with reporters last night. "I strongly believe that
Cuban MiGs downed two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft in international waters," he told reporters, halting at one point
to bury his face in his hands.
At the time of the shooting, his plane was about 15 miles north of Havana, and the other two planes were about five
miles away, Basulto said.
Late yesterday, officials from U.S. Customs Service questioned Basulto and three other crew members at the group's
headquarters at Opa-Locka Airport in Miami.
Basulto said he had given them tapes of the pilots' conversations with Cuban aviation authorities that show none of them
were ever closer than 15 miles from the Havana coast.
But a Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said early indications suggested the planes may have been
heading to Cuba to land, pick up people and fly them out of the country.
White House press secretary Mike McCurry said U.S. officials had been unaware that Cuba was the real destination of
the planes.
For years, Brothers to the Rescue planes have flown over the Florida Strait, spotting refugees, marking their location by
dropping yellow smoke bombs or colored dye, and then summoning Coast Guard officials to pluck them from the
treacherous waters. The group has five light planes and an operating budget of about $1.2 million a year, all from
donations.
"They would be flying out there all the time, almost daily, looking for refugees," said Woodring, the Coast Guard
spokesman. "But we have not heard from them much lately."
Coast Guard officials said the exile group's relationship with them changed after the U.S. government reversed policy
and announced in August 1994 that it would no longer bring refugees it rescued to the United States, but rather detain
them at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The shooting comes as relations between Cuba and the United States are in flux. On the U.S. side, the Clinton
administration is undecided on what to do about a bill that would tighten its economic embargo. The measure has been
passed by both houses of Congress.
Information from the Associated Press and Reuters is included in this report. Hmmmm- a little better than "AIM"= Accuracy is Malleable |
