Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 29, 1994 TAG: 9408300052
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: HAVANA, CUBA LENGTH: Medium
In Washington, Secretary of State Warren Christopher sent a signal outlining a possible U.S. deal with Cuba over migration, saying the Clinton administration may allow more Cubans to enter the United States through legal immigration if Castro agrees to stop his citizens from going to sea in rafts.
In a television interview Sunday, Christopher suggested that the administration is willing to change current policies, broaden the categories of Cubans who can immigrate legally and speed up the processing of their applications if that will help end the crisis.
His statement was the clearest public signal yet of the administration's willingness to meet one of Castro's longstanding demands: easier legal migration for discontented Cubans.
``We're quite prepared to talk to them about legal, lawful migration to the United States, how to make that more effective, what categories of people can come in to the United States,'' Christopher said on the CBS' ``Face the Nation.'' ``We're quite prepared to consider lawful migration, perhaps enhanced lawful migration, if they're prepared to stop the unlawful migration.''
The order to keep children from risk came in a message from Castro published Sunday in Juventud Rebelde, Cuba's only Sunday newspaper.
He said he would send border guards and internal police to patrol the beaches because ``despite repeated warnings to people not to leave the country with children and adolescents aboard insecure boats, some people have continued to do so.''
He said the guards would work on land to ``persuade'' people not to take children of high school age or younger on boats that were not seaworthy. If the would-be refugees persisted, the guards would use force if necessary, but they would not resort to using arms, the message said.
Mercedes Pichardo, 35, said Sunday that she was approached on Cojimar beach by a guard in camouflage uniform carrying a pistol. ``He told us that it was prohibited to take children, pregnant women or old people on our boat, and if we did we would get four years in prison,'' she said. She added that her children are 19, 15 and 10 and the younger two will stay behind with their grandmother.
``It is very dangerous for children, so we leave them at home,'' she said, ``but people are going to go anyway.''
Castro's message also said forces would patrol Cuban waters in search of those who chose to defy the warnings on land.
Cubans who live near the coast and others who have been camping out on the beaches preparing to flee said that, until Sunday, no security forces had interfered with the surge of people making their way to the Florida Straits after Castro relaxed his measures to keep Cubans from fleeing and President Clinton tightened his policy on admitting Cuban refugees.
by CNB