Published Wednesday, August 14, 1996, in the Miami Herald.
Tragedy at sea cushioned by U.S. gesture
Victims' relatives will be let in
By SUSANA BELLIDO and MARIA A. MORALES
Herald Staff Writers
KEY WEST -- The White House is expected to announce today that
at least five relatives of the Cuban rafters who perished at
sea will be granted humanitarian visas, congressional sources
said Tuesday.
Because both Ana Maria Miranda, 47, and 17-month-old Arisleidi
Ravelo died, the relatives who accompanied them on the boat
will be granted visas, the sources said.
Others in the group of 27 rafters whose asylum claims are
found to have merit will be transferred to Krome Detention
Center, the sources said. Seven of them were turned over to
the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Key West late
Tuesday, said Jeff Hall, a Coast Guard spokesman. The others
remained on the Coast Guard cutter Nantucket.
Three were hospitalized and were identified as Marilyn Miranda
Gonzalez, 28, Ana Maria Miranda's daughter-in-law; Milagros
Calvo Puente, 32; and Calvo's son, Mario Noda Calvo, 9.
Marilyn Miranda had a twisted or broken ankle and high fever.
Calvo had severe pain and bruised ribs. Mario had minor
injuries.
``We were so full of hope that we would arrive,'' said Marilyn
Miranda on Tuesday night.
The plight of the group was discussed Tuesday evening ``at the
highest levels of the Department of Justice,'' said Dan Kane,
a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in
Washington. He said a decision should be made by today.
Ana Maria Miranda and Arisleidi drowned in the Florida Straits
this weekend as they were trying to reach U.S. soil. While the
Mirandas held a wake Tuesday night for Ana Maria in Little
Havana, the Ravelos planned to take the body of the toddler to
Miami.
More than 200 mourners crowded the Metropolitan Funeral Home
in Little Havana to pay their last respects to the Miranda
family.
``This is very painful,'' said Domingo Miranda, 55, the
brother of Ana Maria Miranda. ``The news that our other
relatives will be allowed to come to the U.S. gives us some
consolation.''
Others who attended the wake were strangers moved by the
family's loss.
``It's really a shame that people have to take these kinds of
measures to look for a better life,'' said Ana Gonzalez, 80, a
resident of Little Havana. ``Though I don't know anyone on
that boat, I feel their pain.''
The funeral procession for Ana Maria Miranda will leave the
funeral home at 1 p.m. today for the burial at Woodlawn West
Cemetery in Hialeah.
Advocates' requests
Meanwhile, refugee advocates in Miami pushed for what the
group hoped for when it set out on the crossing: a future in
the United States.
Under current U.S. policy, Cuban rafters are returned to their
country unless they reach American shores or prove that they
qualify for political asylum. In some extreme cases,
authorities will grant humanitarian visas.
This group of rafters is such a case, said Arturo Cobo,
coordinator of the Transit Center for Cuban Refugees near Key
West.
``At least the parents should be released,'' he said. ``They
deserve to be there so they can say the last goodbye to this
girl. They have plenty of sorrow and suffering ahead, for the
rest of their lives.''
U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, both
Miami Republicans, wrote Tuesday to Attorney General Janet
Reno on behalf of the group.
``We're asking for political asylum for these people who have
endured a great tragedy,'' said Ros-Lehtinen from San Diego,
where she's attending the Republican National Convention.
``If asylum is out of the question, family members should at
least be allowed to attend the funerals of their loved ones,''
she added.
Jorge Mas Canosa, chairman of the Cuban American National
Foundation, addressed the issue in a letter to President
Clinton's chief of staff Leon Panetta and asked for
humanitarian parole for the 27 survivors.
``Their return to Cuba will most certainly be met by Cuban
government reprisals,'' Mas Canosa wrote.
On radio
Anguished family members in Miami spent most of Tuesday as
guests of Spanish radio talk shows, asking the Clinton
administration to parole their relatives and discussing the
political persecution they would face if returned to Cuba.
Tomas Ravelo, 40, a resident of Hialeah Gardens, spoke of
never having met his 17-month-old granddaughter, Arisleidi.
All he wants now is for his son and the child's mother to be
released so they can attend her funeral in Miami, he said.
``It feels like someone's ripped out a piece of my heart. It's
extremely painful,'' he said. ``Whoever has lost a child knows
what kind of pain we're all going through right now.''
Boaters found the bodies of Miranda and Arisleidi floating
some 25 miles south of Marathon about 10 a.m. Monday. Minutes
later, they discovered 27 other Cubans clinging to a capsized
30-foot boat nearby. Among them were the girl's parents and
the woman's son.
The group ran into trouble hours into their voyage about 11
p.m. Sunday, when their outboard engine malfunctioned. Several
leaned over to check what was wrong. The boat overturned.
Autopsies determined that the two victims drowned.
Two still missing
Still missing are two men who split from the group and headed,
aboard a rubber raft, toward some lights they thought were Key
West. A Coast Guard plane combed 5,000 square miles between
the Keys and Miami on Tuesday looking for the two. At
nightfall, they suspended the search indefinitely.
Relatives in Miami knew of the group's plans to cross the
Straits but weren't sure when they would attempt the crossing,
said Roman Ravelo, the little girl's uncle. When they first
heard of the group found Monday, they called around and
eventually determined that one of the victims was their young
relative.
From friends in Cuba, they determined that the group of
relatives and friends from Havana, Bahia Honda and Puerto
Esperanza left Sunday night from near Mariel, Ravelo said.
Late that night, the group was clinging to their overturned
30-foot fiberglass boat. Marilyn Miranda said her husband,
Eduardo Gonzalez, was looking for flares under the boat when
he discovered the body of his mother.
``He gave her a kiss, and then just kept on helping the others
because most didn't know how to swim,'' Miranda said.
© 1996 The Miami Herald.