Serious allegations that a boat carrying Cuban refugees including children was rammed and damaged by the Cayman Protector, the Drug Task Force/RCIPS marine patrol vessel, were never investigated, it has been claimed.

Though police say an investigation into the allegations is ongoing, a refugee who was on the boat at the time has stated that none of the Cubans involved were questioned by authorities during the three months they were in custody in Grand Cayman, despite the fact that the incident was brought to the attention of the United Nations High Commission of Refugees (UNHCR).

Armando Aurelio Tejeda Manrreza, one of twenty-eight Cuban asylum seekers that fled the Cayman Islands on Sunday, 19 March, spoke to Cayman Net News from Tampa, Florida, where he and his family have found sanctuary.

The refugees who took flight included Juan Guerra, who arrived April, 2005, and was appealing a refused application for asylum.

On 6 January, Net News reported that the group of twenty-seven, who were at the time detained in Grand Cayman, had made written allegations that they were forced to leave their vessel after it was rammed by the marine patrol vessel.

They further claimed that Cayman officers pointed guns at the group, which included eight children, and threatened to sink their boat to force them to disembark.

They alleged that ten out of the original thirty-seven Cubans continued on their journey, despite the fact that the Cayman enforcement boat damaged their homemade craft.

The allegations were sent to Cayman Islands Human Rights Committee (CIHRC) member Gordon Barlow and copied to Net News by a relative of one of the group, Evaristo Suarez, who resides in Toronto, Canada.

Net News forwarded the report to Janice Marshall, Senior Regional Protection Office of the United Nations High Commission of Refugees (UNHCR) in their Regional Office, Washington.

Chief Secretary, the Hon George McCarthy, said at the time that he had seen the claims made by the Cubans in their written report, and that he would be referring the matter to Commissioner of Police Stuart Kernohan.

Acting Commissioner Rudolph Dixon said Monday 24 April that the matter was still under investigation.
“The investigation into these allegations is currently ongoing, although efforts to determine what happened have been hampered by the fact that some of the Cubans involved have absconded,” he said.

However, Mr Manrreza maintained that the Cubans were never questioned about the incident by any Cayman Police or Immigration officer, or any member of the CIHRC, a claim Mr Dixon has not answered.

Ten weeks elapsed between the time the Chief Secretary asked the RCIPS to investigate and the Cubans’ flight mid-March.

The only person who asked them about this incident while they were in the Cayman Islands was UNHCR Protection Officer Sandrine Desamours, who made a two-day visit here in January, according to Mr Manrreza.

“What did they do? Nothing!” he said of the Cayman authorities, adding, “I think they are all happy that everyone has gone.”

Though Mr Dixon said that “some” of the Cubans involved in the incident had absconded, in fact, all twenty-seven Cuban nationals are now in the US, where, under the so-called wet-foot/dry-foot policy, they are all likely to be allowed to remain.

The experience in Cayman has left Mr Manrreza angry. He claimed that one officer told them that they had gone after the ten Cubans who had continued the journey and had given them food, water and fuel.
However, Mr Manrreza said that he had met up with one of these men in Florida and had found that this was untrue.

He does not think the Cayman Government supports human rights; they just talk about them, he said. Mr Manrreza claimed he has spoken to a man in Florida whose wife is in custody in Cayman right now. The woman wants to call her mother in Cuba to tell her that she is alright, but has not been allowed to do so.

On a positive note, Mr Manrreza said that his group’s lawyer Sheena Frederick-Westerborg of Associated Advocates Chambers was the best person they got to know on Grand Cayman, and he felt bad that they left without telling her.

“She is a good person and a good lawyer. We had a special relationship. I have to call her to say we are sorry,” said Mr Manrreza, who hoped their sudden departure did not reflect badly on Ms Frederick-Westerborg.

Even as the Cayman Government continues to repatriate Cuban nationals, Mr Manrreza maintained that not all the Cubans that land on these shores are economic migrants as the authorities here claim.

According to a Government release, Chief Immigration Officer Franz Manderson reported that six Cuban males were returned to Cuba Friday afternoon, 21 April.

Meanwhile, Mr Manrreza said that the Cayman Government sends all Cubans back to Cuba because they say they leave for economic reasons, but he claims, “Plenty of Cubans have political problems.”

He said that he, as a journalist, and his wife Inés María Valdéz Ruíz, who is a nurse, would certainly have gone to jail if they had been repatriated by the Cayman Government, which they believed was a real possibility.

“The political police in Cuba take all who say something against the Government,” he explained. The couple escaped first Cuba and then the Cayman Islands with their seventeen-year-old daughter Irisley Tejeda Valdez, a first year law student, and twelve-year-old son Armando Tejeda Valdéz.

There were six other children in the group of twenty-seven: three young children under the age of five and three teenagers. Going back out to sea was a very difficult decision to make, said Mr Manrreza.

“The sea is very dangerous and I had my family, and we had small kids along. There were many troubles,” he said. However, he would not say how they left the Cayman Islands, and the group’s escape remains open to speculation at this time.

nicky@caymannetnews.com