If this were but one isolated act there would still be just cause for outrage, but sadly in Cuba there is a pattern for this type of brutality by a government against its own people, stretching back over the past four decades of the current regime. During the summer of 1993 in the month of June, U.S. military guards surveying Guantanamo Bay witnessed what the U.S. State Department called "an act of extreme cruelty."
On June 19 at 2:00 p.m., Cuban troops aboard patrol boats dropped grenades in the paths of several swimmers headed for the U.S. base. A day later on June 20 at 1:30 p.m., Cuban troops repeated the action, then strafed the water with machine-gun fire. Six days later on June 26 at 11 a.m., three patrol boats surrounded a group of swimmers, lobbing grenades and spraying them with automatic weapons fire. At least three corpses were lifted out of the water with gaffs. A day later on June 27 at 11:30 a.m., guards aboard patrol boats lobbed two grenades into the water. Just before 3:00 p.m., a patrol boat opened automatic fire on a group of swimmers. Agents of the Cuban government were using gaffs usually used to pull game fish into boats on human beings to pull their bodies from the water after using grenades and machine gun fire on defenseless swimmers.
The 1995 Ackerman and Clark study, The Cuban Balseros: Voyage of Uncertainty states that, "between 1959 and late August 1994, a total of as many as 100,000 balseros [rafters] may have died in crossing." Furthermore, they argue that rafters in the early days of the revolution faced harsher conditions because Cuban gunboats "at that time had orders to shoot to kill."
We seek to draw attention to these outrages, and we plan to do so by once again raising a civil and respectful call for justice. We believe that the crimes committed above are a result of the utilization of violence, arrogance, and hatred as government policy. The best way to oppose evil is with moral principle and ethical conduct. Last year on July 13, 1999, five members of the Free Cuba Foundation fasted at Florida International University for 24 hours. We held silent vigils in remembrance of those who have died violently in the Florida Straits, and created an on-line website in remembrance of the "13 de Marzo" victims at http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/justicenow .
Continuing our call for justice we are calling on all men and women of good will to join us in a six-minute moment of silence on July 13 at twelve noon. We will remember in silence this crime and the six years that have passed without justice for the victims, and their families. Finally, on the evening of July 13 we will meet at 6pm at the Coconut Grove Convention Center to march for justice and reconciliation to Our Lady of Charity which will be holding a mass for the victims of the "13 de Marzo" massacre at 8pm.