Word: cuban
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...pressures on Castro at home have forced the Cuban leader to play a risky game. Castro's goal, argues a State Department official, "is to force us to negotiate the embargo." By threatening to swamp South Florida with another wave of refugees, Castro was gambling he could wring concessions out of the U.S. without destroying his own regime in the process. "What he's always good at is flipping things so his problem becomes someone else's," says the official. "This is his last card. He knows this is the one thing he can do to get our attention...
...Floridians were adamant: they would not, could not bear the cost of absorbing a vast new population of exiles. Already blistered by criticism of his reversals on Haiti, Clinton needed a firm solution that would slow the flood of refugees but not ignore their suffering or antagonize the powerful Cuban-American community in Florida...
Clinton enjoyed a certain amount of maneuvering room: there is no significant sentiment in Congress to open up immigration or lift the trade embargo on Cuba. "The solution is not for 100,000 Cubans to come to the U.S.," says New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, "but for one man to leave Cuba, and that is Fidel Castro." While some angry Cuban Americans took to the streets of Miami shouting, "Down with Clinton!" exile leaders like Jorge Mas Canosa, chairman of the powerful Cuban American National Foundation, lobbied the White House to keep up the pressure. The truth is that even...
Some in Cuba, however, doubted the policy change would be any more of a deterrent than the sharks, the hunger, the stormy seas that refugees were already braving. In the Havana suburb of Miramar, the news that boat people would be detained did not deter a young Cuban who was hurrying to finish his raft. "I'll take my chances," he said. "They won't send us back...
...pressure has grown all summer as gas, cigarette and food prices continued to climb. Residents of the capital began riding the ferry across Havana Bay four or five times a day, hoping it would be hijacked to Key West. Other Cubans began to commandeer motorboats and tugboats, but the authorities gave chase and opened fire. On July 13 at least 32 people died on the tugboat Trece de Marzo after it was rammed and sunk by pursuing Cuban ships. Aug. 5 saw the largest antigovernment demonstrations since Castro came to power...