Myles B. Kantor
Friday, Oct. 11, 2002

A bittersweet anniversary in Cuban and American history recently passed: the end of the Mariel boat lift.

On March 28, 1980, a bus of asylum seekers crashed into the Peruvian Embassy in Havana. Fidel Castro withdrew guards from the embassy on April 4.

Over 10,000 Cubans fled to the embassy within 48 hours.

The regime announced on April 20 that anyone could leave by boat at the port of Mariel in Havana. Cuban exiles began sailing to Mariel in what became known as the "freedom flotilla." (Many who left on the flotilla were people of color, refuting Castro's propaganda about how much the Cuban Revolution benefited them.)

On May Day, Castro vilified the new exiles as "scum," "antisocial individuals" and "lumpen" (a word he used over 20 times). He also referred to "Some limp wrists" who entered the embassy, "shameless creatures who had been covering up" – a none-too-vague reference to homosexuals. (Castro claimed in a 1992 interview: "I personally have no phobia against homosexuals. In reality, it has never been in my mind, and I have never supported, promoted, nor backed policies against homosexuals.")

To complement Castro's Hitlerian rhetoric, thug squads organized by his secret police perpetrated "acts of repudiation" upon the "scum." With lead pipes and rocks they re-enacted Kristallnacht on Cuban soil.

Despite the proclamation that anyone could leave, the reality was more discriminatory. The late Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas left during Mariel and recounts in his memoir, "Before Night Falls":

Before entering the area for people already authorized to leave the country, we had to wait in a long line and submit our passports to an agent of State Security who checked our names against those listed in a huge book; they were the names of people not authorized to leave the country.

Before boarding the boats, we were sorted into categories and sent into empty warehouses: one for the insane, one for murderers and hard-core criminals, another for prostitutes and homosexuals, and one for the young men who were undercover agents of State Security to be infiltrated in the United States. The boats were filled with people taken from each of these different groups.

Over 125,000 Cubans had fled their homeland when Castro closed Mariel on Sept. 26 and ended the quasi-moratorium on national captivity. "After the Mariel episode," writes Pascal Fontaine in "The Black Book of Communism," "numerous other Cubans registered on lists of people seeking permission to leave the country. Nearly twenty years later, most of them are still waiting."

Mariel wasn't the first or last time that Castro released some Cubans to purge opposition and spite America. On Aug. 5, 1994, thousands rioted in Havana after the July 13 massacre of at least 37 refugees including infants. Over 30,000 fled on rafts when Castro temporarily opened the cage, thousands dying at sea.

An event reminiscent of March 1980 occurred this February when young asylum seekers crashed into the Mexican Embassy. A young Cuban said before the incident: "We just want to get out! Let us out! We'll go anywhere."

The regime deployed pipe-carrying thug squads (now called Rapid Response Brigades) and police with dogs who arrested and beat hundreds (journalists from Reuters included). At Mexico's request, Cuban forces entered the embassy and seized the asylum seekers.

Castro can be expected to permit another exodus when things heat up. No doubt Cubans would prefer freedom in their native land to fleeing at the Maximum Leader's ukase.

To witness this 43-year long enormity 90 miles from America begs the question: If America can emancipate Afghanistan from totalitarianism and talk about emancipating Iraq from totalitarianism, why don't Cubans deserve emancipation?

Contact Myles Kantor at kantor@FreeEmigration.com

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