[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 96 (Thursday, July 21, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: July 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
JULY 13 INTENTIONAL SINKING OF CUBAN REFUGEE BOAT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Menendez] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Speaker, last Wednesday, July 13, 1994, a group of
approximately 72 people tried to escape from Cuba on the tug boat ``13
de Marzo'' 13th of March. Just after sailing from dock 06 at the Port
of Havana, they were discovered and chased by the Castro regime's coast
guard about 7 miles from the port. They were sunk by the regime's
forces.
What follows that I want to share with my colleagues is testimony,
living testimony of Janet Hernandez Gutierrez, 19 years of age, a
survivor of the intentional sinking of the tug boat ``13 de Marzo''
that took place before dawn on July 13, 1994. She said:
When we set sail everything was going very well. There was
no one, nothing in our way, no obstacle. When we were coming
out of the bay we saw two tugboats at the mouth of the bay.
They let us through.
When we reached the seven miles the cannons of water were
high pressure, a terrible force. We were holding the
children, fearful that they would fall. The men were with us,
fearful that we would fall. But so that they would see that
there were women and children aboard, we had to come out on
deck, so that they would be certain of that and would not
commit murder.
When we were at 7 miles, we see that they speed up and they
pull up alongside of us. And then we could not see the Cuban
coast, because we could see nothing; not the lights of the
Malecon [Havana seawall] or of the lighthouse, nothing. They
start hitting our boat, the tugboat ``13 de Marzo''. We were
afraid, not for ourselves, but for the children.
Children from 5 months of age and up. When we lifted the
children, they saw them--because they did see them--we
started to scream, ``please, please don't do this'', but they
did not listen. Even a young man who was with us, Roman, who
is currently in prison, yelled at one of the ones in the
other tugboat, ``Chino, don't do that. Look, we have
children'', and he showed his three-year-old step-daughter.
If he does not lower the child at that moment the little girl
would have been killed with the cannon of water.
They simply let us exit the bay and they attack us at seven
miles where there would be no witnesses. You know that in the
open sea there are no witnesses, she says. ``When they
continue to hit our boat, a second tugboat comes up from
behind. The biggest one of the tugboats. It was green with a
red stripe, a red line. He hits us and breaks half of our
boat from behind.
It was sinking, with all of its weight in the middle from
from all those people who were in the hold. There were around
72 people, most of them women and children. Men made up the
least fatalities. Then the Whirlpool created by the tugboats
swallowed them up. My sister-in-law, Pilar Almanza Romero and
her son Yasel Perodin Alamanza were there. Uncle Gayol,
Manuel Gayol, was in the hold of the boat. Those are three of
my family that I lost.
When my husband saw this, you can imagine, he went mad. My
brother-in-law too, but he was trying to save the other boy.
Then we both tried to reach the other boy. But when I tried
to move I feel that my nephew, the one who drowned, is
holding me by the foot. When I reach for him, he was clinging
to my tennis shoe, and he was swept away. I could not reach
him. It was terrible.
When I boarded the ``grifin'' [The Cuban coast guard which
subsequently came] I insulted them. I told them they were
murderers, I told them everything I could think of. I told
them they have no mercy with children, because here in Cuba
they say that there are many privileges for children and the
old. But they even let old people drown there. And many
children. Nearly 23 children dead there.
The town is in an uproar she is back in Cuba mind you with
the will and courage to talk about this. People are desperate
for a bit of information, anything that is known about the
corpses that remain captive in the hold of that boat. Roberto
Robaina [Cuba's Minister of Foreign Relations who lied to the
world press about this tragedy], he says that we knew the
boat had a malfunction when we left port. Do you really think
that we would have risked the lives of children and women
knowing there was a malfunction? Knowing that there is so
much sea to cross?
They called me every kind of name * * * ``Worm,
counterrevolutionary.'' And I accepted that because I am
against this government. And I will say that anywhere. I know
that I will be persecuted, because all of the survivors are
under intense surveillance* * * But I asked them in Villa
Marista,'' The National Headquarter for State Security ``that
what will become of those responsible for sinking us, the
murderers of our children and relatives.''
There is no answer.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is her lingering question. To those who
want to lift the trade embargo against the Castro regime, those who
want to do away with the Radio and TV Marti to those who want to do
business with the Castro government, I say answer Janet Hernandez
Gutierrez's question: What will become of the murderers of those
children and relatives?
It is time to break the silence. It is time for those who stand up
for human rights in this Congress to speak out, and it is time for the
entire national and international press to end their deadly silence
about the atrocities of Castro's Cuba.
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