Caught at Sea, 5 Cubans Are Escorted Home

HAVANA —  The U.S. Coast Guard has repatriated five more Cubans intercepted at sea who were trying to flee their island, bringing to 1,108 the total of would-be immigrants returned in 1999, state media said Friday.

The five brought back Thursday were all from the western Cuban province of Pinar del Rio.

The latest return brings to more than 2,500 the number of Cubans repatriated since Havana and Washington signed immigration accords in September 1994 and May 1995 to stem a flood of Cubans trying to get to the United States.

In past years, thousands of would-be immigrants tried to make the dangerous, 90-mile crossing on boats, tires, inner tubes and makeshift rafts. Many died on the way.

In the last couple of years, however, speedboats operated by U.S.-based smuggling rings have become the main mode of transport for the would-be immigrants.

“The matter of illegal Cuban immigration continues being promoted by the Miami mafia and its political interests,” the Cuban state news agency Prensa Latina said in a report on this week’s repatriation, the 49th operation of its kind in the year.

A 6-year-old boy who survived the shipwreck of a boat on its way to Florida in November has become a focus for angry Cuban protests over the immigration issue. President Fidel Castro has backed the boy’s father’s call for his return to Cuba, while relatives in Miami say Elian Gonzalez should stay with them rather than being returned to the Communist-run island.

Havana blames U.S. propaganda broadcasts to Cuba and Washington’s so-called wet foot/dry foot policy for encouraging illegal departures from the island. Under U.S. policy toward Cubans, those hoping to immigrate who touch U.S. soil are eligible for residency, while those intercepted at sea are sent back.