In the course of tracking down your Hemingway article, I came across this:
startelegram.com
Wednesday, May. 24, 2000 at 23:07 CDT
Coast Guard documents cast doubt on story of Elian's
rescue
By Alfonso Chardy
Knight Ridder Newspapers
A doctor who examined Elian Gonzalez shortly after he was rescued on
Thanksgiving Day told immigration authorities the boy probably had been in
the water less than 24 hours, newly released U.S. Coast Guard records
show.
The records, and interviews based on them, also cast doubt on the
commonly told story of how the two adult survivors of the rafter tragedy
came ashore.
A man listed in the documents as a witness told The Herald Tuesday that he
found Arianne Horta and Nivaldo Fernandez several miles out to sea and
brought them to Crandon Park Marina so they would not be returned to
Cuba.
The two survivors have insisted that they swam to shore by themselves, a
story Horta repeated again this week.
The records, released to The Herald in response to a request filed under the
federal Freedom of Information Act, are unlikely to change the basic legal
issues in the court battle over whether Elian Gonzalez is entitled to a political
asylum hearing.
But they show that six months after Elian was plucked from the sea there is
still much that is not known for sure about the sinking of the boat that
carried Elian, his mother and 12 other people on an ill-fated journey to the
United States.
Resolving those discrepancies could prove difficult. Only Horta, Fernandez
and Elian, who was then 5 years old, survived the sinking, and the
documents suggest that Horta and Fernandez have changed some of the
details of their account since they were first interviewed by U.S. authorities.
But Coast Guard officials also were cautious about the accuracy of
information contained in the phone and radio logs provided to The Herald.
"Many times, the information in the logs is hearsay," said a Coast Guard
spokeswoman who asked that her name not be published.
According to the most oft-repeated version of the events, the boat in which
Elian, his mother, Horta, 22, and her boyfriend, Fernandez, 33, were
traveling capsized late at night Monday, Nov. 22. That would mean that
Elian, Horta and Fernandez spent more than 50 hours in the water before
being rescued on the morning of Nov. 25, Thanksgiving Day.
There is little doubt that the boat left Cuba Nov. 22. Cuban authorities
telexed the U.S. Coast Guard that day reporting that a badly overloaded
boat had left for the United States. And a phone bill shows that Elian's
grandfather, Juan Gonzalez Hernandez, placed a collect call to his sister in
Miami, Georgina Cid, at 9:01 p.m. that day to report that Elian and his
mother were on their way to Miami.
But it is less clear what happened between that time and 6:21 a.m.
Thanksgiving Day -- the time listed on a Miami-Dade police report taken
on the discovery at Crandon Park Marina of Horta and Fernandez. Elian
was located about two hours later off Fort Lauderdale.
In an interview Tuesday, Horta repeated her version of events that she,
Fernandez and Elian were in the water from around 10 p.m. Monday Nov.
22 until their discovery Nov. 25.
"I remember distinctly that we went into the water Nov. 22 because it was
my birthday," Horta said. "I spent my birthday in the water."
A Coast Guard log entry at noon Nov. 25, however, contradicts Horta. It
says the boat capsized "early Tuesday morning."
Another Coast Guard log entry written at 6:52 p.m. Nov. 25 reflects deep
Border Patrol suspicion that the survivors could have been in the water
since Monday night. It quotes an unidentified Border Patrol agent as saying
it was "not believable that 5-year-old survived on raft for 3 days."
Yet, the same log entry notes that "Miami medical personnel" had indicated
to the Border Patrol that Horta and Fernandez "look like they could have
been out there for that long."
Another entry, this from Nov. 26, the day after the rescues, claims that a
doctor had said the boy had been in the water much less time than the
commonly believed version would suggest.
"Doctor said the boy wasn't in the water 24 hrs," the entry says. The
notation was made by an unidentified Coast Guard mission coordinator.
The coordinator obtained the information from a U.S. Border Patrol officer
who -- in turn -- was relaying the gist of a conversation with one of the
doctors who treated Elian at Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital in
Hollywood.
The Coast Guard said this week that it did not have the name of the doctor.
A spokeswoman for the hospital, Lauri Brunelli, declined to comment, citing
patient confidentiality.
The log note also said the doctor voiced doubts about how long a woman
found dead in or near Elian's inner tube had been in the water. The note
said: "old lady wasn't in water 24 hours or dead for 4 hours."
The "old lady" was Merida Loreto Barrios, 61, believed to have been the
last person on the ill-fated boat to stay with Elian before dying.
Inconsistencies about the timing of the capsizing are compounded by
differing versions of how Horta and Fernandez reached shore.
Horta, in a story The Herald published Nov. 28, was quoted as saying she
and Fernandez were rescued by a passing boat. But in a later story
published Dec. 13, Horta left the impression she and Fernandez swam to
shore -- a version Horta repeated Tuesday, saying that she and Fernandez
made the swim after seeing the lights of Key Biscayne.
But a previously unreleased police report gave the name of a witness, Reniel
Carmenate, who when contacted by The Herald Tuesday gave two
accounts of how Horta and Fernandez were rescued, both of which differed
from Horta's version.
In the first, Carmenate said that he and other people pulled Horta and
Fernandez from an inner tube as it floated in the water near Crandon Park
Marina on the west side of the Rickenbacker Causeway near Key
Biscayne.
But when told that Horta claimed that she and Fernandez had swum to
shore, Carmenate changed his story.
"I guess I'll have to tell you what really happened," he said. "The real story is
that we found them several miles off Key Biscayne."
He said he couldn't remember the exact spot but that it could have been as
much as seven miles offshore. Carmenate said he and the others spotted
Horta and Fernandez because they heard Horta screaming in the predawn
darkness.
Carmenate said he took Horta and Fernandez to shore before calling
authorities so the couple would not be automatically returned to Cuba.
Cuban migrants intercepted at sea are generally repatriated while those who
reach shore usually stay.
Carmenate said he was aware of the policy because he had been a "rafter"
himself. Carmenate said he arrived from Cuba by boat two years ago.
Carmenate said Horta and Fernandez were in bad shape, dehydrated and
severely sunburned, when they were picked up.
"It looked like they had been in the water for a long time," Carmenate said
Told of Carmenate's version, Horta insisted Wednesday that she and
Fernandez swam to shore by themselves and that she had never met
Carmenate. Fernandez could not be reached for comment; a phone call
asking for Fernandez at Metro Ford, where both Horta and Fernandez
work, was transferred to Horta.
But there is little doubt that Carmenate was one of the sources of the first
reports to authorities about Horta and Fernandez. His name is listed in a
Miami-Dade police account of the incident, and a Coast Guard log entry
notes that a Border Patrol agent believed that the fishermen who found
Horta and Fernandez somehow were involved.
Horta's and Fernandez's initial accounts of the trip also fueled suspicions
that the trip was a smuggling venture.
According to the Miami-Dade police report, which was included in the
Coast Guard documents, Horta and Fernandez told Miami-Dade police
officers Frank Rodriguez and Osvaldo Castillo that they had paid $2,000 to
board in Cuba.
Horta, in the interview Tuesday, denied that either she or Fernandez paid
for the trip. |
