La historia de “Negri” el perrito balsero

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Entrevista al pescador que rescató a Elián González

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Cuba torpedea 4ta ronda de conversaciones con EEUU con asunto migratorio y fechas

en la historia de las relaciones entre el regimen de la habana y las administraciones estadounidenses en los ultimos 56 anos, es una regularidad que los intentos por distenter las tensiones y acercar las posiciones por parte de los eeuu, fidel castro y ahora su heredero raul, han puesto unos y otros obstaculos para torpedear el proceso. a las demandas iniciales de la devolucion de los 5 espias y eliminar a cuba de los paises patrocinadores del terrorismo, se han anadido por boca del presidente designado, el levantamiento unilateral y total del embargo comercial y la devolucion integra de la base militar de guantanamo. 

como estos son objetivos a alcanzar a mediano y largo plazo, mientras congelan la respuesta para el servicio de ferries eeuu-cuba y su uso por cubanos de ambas orillas, ello no es suficiente para los terroristas de negociaciones, cuando ahora se aparecen con que 38 cubanos interceptados en alta mar por el guardacosta vigilant, no son retornables a cuba porque su regreso no se ajusta al acuerdo de repatriacion entre ambas naciones. 

estos pacientes geriatricos que desgobiernan en la isla biranica, tienen una plasticidad y creatividad neuronal de un enfermo avanzado de alzheimer, pues repiten desde su 1ra juventud hasta la seniptud calamitosa el mismo esquema tactico-estrategico. todavia por ahi algunos celebran la flexibilidad creativa de los ancianos cagalistrosos.

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por otra parte mientras la administracion obama anuncia para el proximo 21 de mayo en washington dc la realizacion de la 4ta ronda de negociaciones bilaterales, el monigote de ministro de relaciones exteriores del regimen brunito "4 ojos" rodriquez, afirma tranqulamente a la afp que las mismas se producirian en las "proximas" semanas. 

"Remando" - El Chichi

Young Cuban Murdered for Attempting to Flee the Island

capitolhillcubans

President Obama says the Cold War is over, but the Castro regime hasn't gotten the memo.

In a scene straight out of East Germany, a 28-year old Cuban, Yurinierki Martinez Reina, was shot in the back for attempting to flee the island for a life of freedom.

Martinez Reina, along with a group of friends, was caught building a small vessel to leave Cuba near Menendez Beach in Matanzas.

They began to run, as a Castro regime security official, identified as Miguel Angel Rio Seco Rodriguez, began shooting at them.

Two day later, the body of Martinez Reina was found shot in the back.

Mariel: Bishop returns to Cuba 35 years after leading refugee rescue mission

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Video exclusivo de cubanos que grabaron su travesía por mar hacia EEUU

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Cuban family struggles to return loved one's body

Cayman Compass
By: Brent Fuller

The group of four Cuban boaters was photographed from the RCIPS helicopter on Jan. 3.

The body of a Cuban man who drowned off the coast of Grand Cayman in early January has been kept at the local morgue for two-and-a-half months while negotiations stalled over how his remains might be sent home.

Manuel Ramon Mariño-Vasquez, 51, was one of four Cuban migrants spotted in a makeshift 18-foot boat off Cayman Brac on Jan. 2. The men were escorted offshore by a Marine Unit patrol in the Brac and turned up in East End amid rough seas the next morning. Police said the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service helicopter spotted the migrants around 11 a.m. on Jan. 3 and that they had indicated “they were not in distress.”

By sunset on Jan. 3, Mr. Mariño-Vasquez had died off South Sound, apparently by drowning. The three other Cuban men were rescued by surfers near Sand Quay after their craft capsized.

Local police conducted an investigation, which has since been completed. The three survivors were repatriated to Cuba a few weeks ago, but the dead boater’s body was not sent home.

Mr. Mariño-Vasquez was not initially known to the local Cuban community in Cayman, and local pastor Andres Ramos only learned the man’s name because one of his fellow migrants had written it in a page of his Bible and given the book to Mr. Ramos.

Since then, Mr. Ramos’s wife Annie said, Mr. Mariño-Vasquez’s family in Miami and Cuba have made contact, pleading with the Cayman Islands government and anyone else who might help them to return the migrant’s body to Cuba.

Another local pastor, Helbert Rodriquez of the Cayman Baptist Church, said a church volunteer went to see whether Mr. Mariño-Vasquez’s body was still in the morgue about two weeks ago and confirmed it was still there. He has remained in contact with the family since then.

“The family has been calling from Cuba and Miami, asking me if I can help,” said Pastor Rodriguez. “They don’t want him to be buried here.”

The issue was money. Pastor Ramos said they were told it would cost $5,000 to send Mr. Mariño-Vasquez’s body back home. Local churches started up a collection about two weeks ago to try to raise the money for the man’s family.

At one stage, Pastor Rodriguez said, the government told a church representative that the migrant boater would be buried in Cayman. “The Cayman government said that since there’s nobody moving nothing, they will bury the body in Cayman. The family says please, don’t make this happen.’”

The repatriation of living Cuban migrants is a lengthy and costly task for the Cayman Islands government. Earlier this month, Ministry of Home Affairs Deputy Chief Officer Wesley Howell revealed that the government had spent nearly $1.6 million in 2014 on the detention, housing and repatriation of migrant boaters that arrive illegally on Cayman’s shores.

That cost is far beyond anything the local government has spent in recent years, due mostly to a large increase in the number of migrants coming to Cayman and partly due to security improvements made last year at the Immigration Department’s detention center for migrants in George Town.

Returning the bodies of migrant boaters to their families in Cuba is not an issue the Cayman Islands has been required to deal with very often, if at all.

In this case, the Ministry of Home Affairs has agreed to pay the full cost for returning Mr. Mariño-Vasquez’s body to Cuba, Mr. Howell said. However, the government was still trying to work out the logistics of when and how that would be done, he said. It was hoped the body could be returned sometime next week.

The number of Cuban migrants in 2015 seems on course to exceed the arrivals in previous years, with more than 115 having been spotted off the coast of Cayman Brac or Grand Cayman since January. That includes a group of 37 migrants who landed in Cayman Brac last Friday. They were flown to Grand Cayman, where they are housed in the Immigration Detention Centre awaiting repatriation. In 2014, a total of 143 Cuban migrant boaters arrived in Grand Cayman all year.

Entrevistas a balseros Cubanos

NoticiasCubanet Cuba

Balseros graban al guardacostas norteamericano que los interceptó

Oscar Suarez

Balseros cubanos relatan su travesía hacia Miami

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Balseros cubanos llegan a muelle de una casa en Palmetto Bay

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Llegan ocho balseros cubanos a Virginia Key

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Crucero de Royal Caribbean encuentran balseros cubanos en alta mar

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EEUU preocupado por aumento de balseros

Café Fuerte

Por Wilfredo Cancio Isla

En un intento por desalentar el preocupante incremento de viajes ilegales desde Cuba, las autoridades estadounidenses reiteraron este lunes que la política de inmigración y las operaciones de los guardacostas se mantienen sin cambios en el Estrecho de la Florida, e insistieron que solo el Congreso puede alterar las leyes vigentes respecto a los refugiados cubanos.

La advertencia gubernamental trascendió en un comunicado emitido por el Servicio Guardacostas, luego de producirse un inusitado crecimiento en el flujo de operacionjes ilegales desde Cuba durante la segunda mitad de diciembre y los primeros días de enero, coincidiendo con el anuncio del presidente Barack Obama para normalizar las relaciones con La Habana.

Un total de 890 cubanos han sido interceptados en el Estrecho de la Florida y en la zona del Caribe,  o han logrado llegar a las costas estadounidenses desde que comenzó el año fiscal 2015, el pasado 1 de octubre. De ellos, 577 lo han hecho durante diciembre y los primeros días de enero en una escalada que ha disparados las alarmas en Washington y la comunidad de Miami.

Oleaje después del 17 de diciembre

Después del anuncio de Obama, los cubanos capturados en el mar suman 421.

“El anuncio reciente de la Administración respecto a Cuba [el 17 de diciembre] no afecta las políticas de inmigración, que incluyen la orden de pies secos /pie secos mojados y la Ley de Ajuste Cubano [CAA], que solo puede cambiar el Congreso de Estados Unidos”, dijo el comunicado obtenido por CaféFuerte.

La exhortación alertó que las operaciones del Servicio Guardacostas en el Estrecho de la Florida y el Golfo de México siguen en efecto, y alertó que sus efectivos mantienen una agresiva presencia  en la región paradesalentar las travesías peligrosas y mortales desde la isla.

“Las personas deben tener un visado u otro permiso para viajar a Estados  Unidos y cualquiera que sea localizado en el mar será devuelto a Cuba, de acuerdo con las leyes de inmigración”, agregó el comunicado.

Es la segunda nota de alerta que envía el Servicio Guardacostas desde que el presidente Obama anunció el cambio de política a la isla, lo cual generó expectativas y rumores dentro de la isla sobre el fin de los beneficios migratorios que gozan los ciudadanos cubanos mediante la CAA, establecida de 1966.

Advertencia repetida

El pasado 18 de diciembre, apenas 24 horas después del discurso de Obama, el Servicio Guardacostas se vio obligado a emitir un primer comunicado aclarando que sus operaciones se mantenían sin cambios y desalentando fuertemente los intentos de inmigrantes cubanos para llegar a territorio estadoundense por vía martítima.

El incremento de la inmigración ilegal desde Cuba parece impulsado por versiones infundadas de que la entrada en funciones del nuevo Congreso de Estados Unidos, con mayoría republicana en ambas cámaras a partir de este 5 de enero, echaría abajo la CAA y otros decretos administrativos que favorecen a los refugiados cubanos.

Las cifras de diciembre resultan altamente significativas: 481 cubanos se han lanzado al mar en 37 operaciones marítimas desde la isla, un alza del 117 por ciento con respecto al mismo período del 2013. Y en solo cinco días de enero, 96 cubanos han sido ya interceptados en el Estrecho de la Florida.

La estampida marítima de cubanos ya vivió la primera tragedia en la arrancada del nuevo año. Un cubano llamado Manuel Marino, de 50 años, se ahogó este sábado cuando la embarcación donde viajaba se volcó, con otros tres inmigrantes, frente a las costas de Islas Cayman.

Sobrevivientes de la tragedia

Los sobrevivientes fuero identificados como Dailer Pérez Arresoitia, de 27 años, Diosul Alarcón Barrero, de 37, y Lety Sánchez Fonseca, de 33, todos de Santa Cruz del Sur, Camagüey. Lograron salvar la vida aferrados a dos tubos internos, con la ayuda de surfistas locales.

Los tres cubanos quedaron arrestados por las autoridadesde Islas Cayman y pudieran ser devueltos a Cuba.

Durante el 2014, la cifra de capturados en el Estrecho de la Florida  se elevó a 2,059, la mayor desde el 2008. En el recién concluido período fiscal las aventuras marítimas en embarcaciones rústicas y operaciones de contrabando involucraron a 3,722 cubanos en intentos de llegar a las costas de la Florida, incluyendo a aquellos vinculados en operaciones marítimas hacia Bahamas, Islas Cayman, Islas Vírgenes y otros destinos en  el mar Caribe y el Océano Atlántico.

Un éxodo masivo y silencioso de cubanos acontece paralelamente a través de los puntos fronterizos de México y Canadá. Solo por la frontera mexicana llegaron a territorio estadounidense 16,247 cubanos durante el 2014.

Balseros cubanos llegan a cayos Marquesas [Video]

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Cuban Boxing Star Mike Perez On He Got Out Of Cuba Getting Caught

ESNEWS

1er Resultado de los Acuerdos Obama-Castro: Guardacostas cubano hunde embarcacion de balseros

es solo el primero. el gobierno norteamericano no se ha pronunciado al respecto y posiblemente sea una de las clausulas secretas que cuba impida la emigracion ilegal por cualquier medio incluyendo el de la fuerza bruta. duras jornadas aguardan a los disidentes y opositores de la isla, pues la represion del regimen cuenta con carta blanca.

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Cuban Coast Guard rammed vessel of Cubans tried to flee the island - A Man Missing

there is a new issue that we have to look at.

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CBS Miami

Lauren Pastrana

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – On the eve of the landmark announcement signaling a policy shift between the U.S. and Cuba, a group of Cubans tried to flee the communist island.

That group never made it to America.

In fact, one man may be lost at sea.

“Still nothing,” a relative of Diosbel Diaz Beoto says on the phone from Cuba. She says she hasn’t heard anything about whether the 32-year-old man is dead or alive.

According to Ramon Saul Sanchez with the Democracy Movement, Diaz Beoto was among more than two dozen people on the speedboat Tuesday when it started sinking.

“The vessel was broken into two and (Diosbel) disappeared,” Sanchez said at a press conference Friday. “They don’t know where he is. They don’t know if he drowned or if he’s floating in the ocean.

Sanchez claims the Cuban government may have played a role in the sinking.

“Cuban Coast Guard rammed the vessel from the back,” Sanchez said.

The U.S. Coast Guard told CBS4 News “There is no evidence to support the claim that is being made by the Democracy Movement and Mr. Sanchez.”

The agency says it received a request to assist at the scene of a sinking boat in Cuban territorial waters, but was then told Cuban authorities responded.

Sanchez said whether the boat was in Cuban waters remains unclear.

A spokesperson for the Coast Guard said the agency “was told that all reported people on the vessel were safely recovered by the Cuban Boarder Guard… (and) that the master of the vessel was being held in Cuba on accusations that he was trying to smuggle people from Cuba to the U.S.”

“At a moment like this, one wonders what really has changed in Cuba,” Sanchez said.

In his final press conference of the year, President Obama emphasized change would not happen overnight.

“I share the concern of dissidents there and human rights activists. This is still a regime that represses its people,” Mr. Obama said. “But what I know deep in my bones is that if you’ve done the same thing for 50 years and nothing’s changed, you should try something different.

President Obama also touched on the embargo, saying he cannot “unilaterally” end it.

He says he hopes Congress will re-examine it and make changes.

Alex Morales - Escaping Cuba On A Windsurfer

Boards Windsurfing

Amy Carter

Alex Morales journeyed from Cuba to America… by windsurfer. This is the story of his brave journey across the ocean and to becoming a respected board shaper. 

Images and words by Timothy Venn.

 

Like many of Miami’s population, Alex Morales’s life started in the Communist dictatorship of Cuba – but his journey since has been unlike any other. Fascinated by his first sight of a windsurfer as an eight year-old boy, he knew he was bitten by the windsurfing bug that was sweeping the world. However, with no windsurfing opportunities for kids, he had to make do with sailing dinghies and begging the local windsurfers for a try on their boards.

This is when young Alex showed the first signs of his improvisational, ‘get-it-done’ attitude when he started to build his own kid’s windsurfer. “I started building Styrofoam boards and bamboo masts and booms. It was jury-rigged gear like a typical third-world kid – but it was the only gear I could get for my size.” Finally, a few years later, he was able graduate to real boards, and his dedication and persistence paid off when he won the 1987 Youth Event and was selected to be in the Cuban Olympic windsurfing team in 1989.

For many windsurfers and Cubans alike, this might have been a dream come true – being paid (albeit a modest stipend) to windsurf. However, the life of a state sponsored windsurfer had limited appeal to Alex, who was acutely aware of the artificial bubble he was living in – limited to state events with other communist countries. “You might be in the best shape – but if you don’t compete internationally, you can never be your best technically.” Word was flooding in from the US and Europe through windsurfing magazines, TV and radio of the exciting developments in equipment and competitions. “My biggest influence back then was the windsurfing magazines that made windsurfing look so colorful and hardcore.”

Alex Morales Windsurfing Cuban Olympic Team 1992

Alex knew what he had to do – but leaving Cuba freely was not an option, so he plotted his departure with the only option left – as a ‘Balsero’, making the 90 mile journey to Florida and freedom by raft. Even as an expert windsurfer, he realized that windsurfing to Florida would be physically exhausting and dangerous, so he tried leaving twice with home-made rafts powered by outboard engines. After both attempts failed, he finally turned to his last and least favored option – by windsurfer. “The windsurfing option was always in the back of my mind, but I knew that it would be exhausting – perhaps beyond my limits.”

In order for this highly risky enterprise to succeed he knew it would take some luck and careful planning, so over the next 18 months he studied the weather, the ocean conditions and currents to figure out the optimal time of year to make his attempt. April 25th 1994 was picked for the consistent east winds, ocean current and moderate weather. Making precise calculations of the wind speed and currents, they set their heading to hit the Florida peninsula precisely in the center of the Florida Keys – avoiding the potentially fatal mistake of going out too far east out into the Atlantic Ocean or west into the Gulf of Mexico. Failing to make landfall in South Florida would have meant that there would have been little chance of completing the journey before exhaustion and dehydration would have taken its toll. He also carefully selected his board – the relatively wide and floaty Bic Reggae with a retractable dagger-board that allowed him to also easily sail upwind in light winds. Added to that, a custom sail that he made out of a 7.0 and smaller wave sail gave him low end power – but would still be manageable in the gusts.

Alex and two fellow windsurfers sailed from Cuba, avoiding the Cuban Coast Guard – taking over eighteen hours to reach US coastal waters where they were picked up by the Governor of Florida’s boat that was coming back from a fishing trip. Exhausted but elated on successfully making the trip, Alex got a call from Eugene (Eugenio Roman, who windsurfed out of Cuba on a last minute whim) to go windsurfing with him in Miami that same day. Alex couldn’t believe it! “I said like “!@#$ you, that’s the last thing I want to do right now! We did actually go windsurfing with him a couple of days later.”

“Windsurfing in Miami was like coming home” says Alex, “Maybe because I had so many friends and family here – I felt like Cuba had become a foreign country and Miami was where I was meant to be all my life.” However, beyond getting to Florida, Alex had no specific plans. Just being free was enough for him for that moment – but that did not mean he stayed idle and he worked hard to assimilate himself into the American culture, as well as becoming a licensed electrical contractor.

Alex’s involvement for the remainder of the 1990’s was minimal. “The US windsurfing media and industry became focused on wave sailing in the late 1990’s – which was something we cannot do here in South Florida, so I was not involved in windsurfing then. It was only when Formula windsurfing became big in the 2003 onwards did I get more involved again. I saw pros like Micah Buzianis and Antoine Albeau on Formula boards – and realized that it allowed windsurfing events to happen in all conditions – giving windsurfing a new life”

 

Local competitions started up again and Alex got back into competing at event after event. “Everything came back when I realized that the events were not so wind dependent on Formula and I was fired up – this is amazing – this is what I was made to do. Then I thought, let’s make so more events and took the ball and started running with it.” Soon he had some big names like Micah Buzianis and Jimmy Diaz putting Miami on the windsurfing competition map. Getting sponsorship was tough – so Alex was forced to front most of the costs himself in the hope that the event generated enough revenue to cover them. “If I had to put the money out of my pocket and possibly lose or win, I still did it – the most important thing is that windsurfing is still alive and Miami is on the map.”

Alex then branched out into spreading the word by creating websites, Windsurfingtour.com and Miamiwindsurfing.com. “Facebook and social media websites have become the go-to platform now for this, replacing websites. Nowadays you have 15 seconds to catch someone’s attention and social media does that” Undeterred with his inability to get sponsorship for his events, Alex launched into a new venture – becoming a board and fin manufacturer himself. And thus, the Tillo International brand (http://tillo-international.com) was born. Alex has created a line of custom Formula, Slalom and SUP boards – hand shaped in his own workshop. Drawing customers from South Florida windsurfing community and his website, Alex’s brand is working on building a significant fan base.

 

With many industry players decrying the demise of windsurfing, Alex is not ready to give up the fight. Even when windsurfing as an Olympic event was threatened in favor of kiteboarding, Alex joined a grass-roots effort to have it re-established, resulting in a surprising 180-degree turnaround by the ISAF committee to overturn their original decision. “It’s all about participation, whether it is at the international level or by the local communities. It’s hard at the local level, as amateurs feel insecure about their ability to compete – but keeping these events going keeps the incentive for the amateur windsurfer to get involved and keep windsurfing and buying gear. Windsurfing dies when people don’t put their time and resources into it. The water sports industry’s attention has shifted to kite boarding and SUP – but that will decline in the future too, if the long-term focus is not there.”

“Miami is one of the best cities in the US for these kinds of events right now. Our Slalom event had 53 competitors, including Micah Buzanis which is amazing – considering a PWA event can only have 40+ participants.” Building on this success, Alex has organized his next Slalom Event on November 4th 2014 in Virginia Key in Miami. He is also confident about the future. “Another exciting development is the new generation of kids with the Bic Techno Class having the biggest sailing fleet ever (with more participation than any sailing class) of over 400 kids in the last World Championship. These kids will go onto RSX and Slalom and carry on the flag of windsurfing. Also, new developments with boards and gear have made the sport faster and more exciting, which can now also be captured by low cost technology such as GoPro and drones – so there is no reason why more people cannot be turned on to this incredible sport.”

Read more at http://boards.mpora.com/features/alex-morales-escaping-cuba-on-a-windsurfer.html#vvyZLIjBMcS1Ficc.99