WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - How horrible is Fidel Castro's communist dictatorship in Cuba? So horrible that people will flee across the choppy Florida Straits in an automobile.
Two of the same men who tried to sail a truck to America last year were behind the wheel of a tailfinned 1950s Buick this week. TV footage of the brave escape attempt is making waves in south Florida, but the Coast Guard won't give out details.
The Bush administration angered Cuban Americans and other anti-communists last year when it returned Marciel Basanta Lopez, Luis Gras Rodriguez and nine others to Castro's tropical gulag after the Coast Guard intercepted their floating truck.
"My cousin isn't crazy. He wants to be free. That's how crazy he is," Kiriat Lopez of Lake Worth told the Miami Herald after he watched in disbelief as Basanta Lopez's face again appeared on the TV news last night.
In Havana, Gras' sister Valentina awaited news of her brother and his 10 companions.
"They are very brave," she said. "When you are so sure of what you have to do you cannot be afraid."
All the Coast Guard would say is this: "U.S. policy does not allow us to comment on ongoing migrant cases until disposition is resolved."
Update: Later today the Herald quoted exile leader Arturo Cobo as saying the escapees would be handed over to Castro's police state.
"My sources tell me that like the truck seven months ago, this car has also been sunk by the Coast Guard and the people onboard will be repatriated back to the island," Cobo said.
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