THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 20, 1994 TAG: 9408200269
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
President Clinton's decision to bar additional Cuban boat people from U.S. shores came less than 24 hours after the administration had insisted no change was necessary in its open-door immigration policy.
The sudden shift had Pentagon officials scrambling for the ships to ferry Cubans to a transition site - Guantanamo Bay Naval Station - and for the tents to house them there.
A senior defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity said two Navy amphibious ships would be sent to the Florida Straits immediately to serve as ferries. Coast Guard cutters intercepting the Cubans will take them to the Navy ships, the official said.
Once full, the ships will sail for Guantanamo - a 42-hour trip at 15 mph.
Then, two hours later, the Pentagon announced a change in those plans: Only one Navy vessel will be used, the dock landing ship Whidbey Island based at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base. The ship was heading for Cuba on Friday, having picked up tents for about 2,000 people from a camp the United States erected last month in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Officials took down the tents, which were put up to house Haitian refugees, as Hurricane Chris developed several hundred miles away. The Turks and Caicos, north of Haiti and northeast of Cuba, are in the middle of a common track for tropical storms. On Friday afternoon, Chris appeared to be heading north and away from the area.
In the area are two other Navy amphibious ships, which typically are used to carry Marines and support their landings. Those ships, the Norfolk-based Wasp and Nashville, are carrying 1,800 Marines who may be called upon in an invasion of Haiti or an evacuation of Americans there.
The three ships could carry about 500 Cubans each on well decks normally used to hold equipment for Marine operations ashore. In good weather, other Cubans could sleep under awnings on the main deck, one official said.
One source said that if the number of Cuban refugees requires a second ferry, the Nashville probably would be used. The 1,200 Marines on the Wasp would be enough to support an evacuation in Haiti, the official said, but not other potential operations there.
The Navy has 14 ships in the immediate area around Cuba. Most are enforcing the international embargo on Haiti or are assigned to counter-drug activities. But Navy sources said eight more ships are within a 700-mile radius of the Florida Straits in the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic and the Caribbean.
Guantanamo itself is about 700 miles by sea from the straits, roughly the same distance as Savannah, Ga., and New Orleans.
The Pentagon also was assembling tents and other equipment needed to build a pair of new tent cities at Guantanamo, where almost more than 16,000 Haitians already are encamped on an abandoned airport tarmac and runway. Tents and equipment also were being shipped to Homestead Air Force Base in south Florida but officials stressed there are no plans now to erect a refugee camp there.
Officials said facilities for up to 10,000 Cubans will be erected at Guantanamo, at a site several miles from where the Haitians are being confined. The base could handle up to 2,000 Cuban refugees immediately, one official said.
Sources said there is no sign of increased attempts by Cubans living around the base to seek sanctuary at the American outpost. The island's communist government has heavily mined the land around the base fences but some Cubans occasionally thread their way through or swim into the bay. MEMO: Rafters taken to Guantanamo
MIAMI - U.S. ships Friday began ferrying Cuban rafters back to Cuba -
to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, the American-controlled corner of the
land they so desperately fled. Hundreds of refugees already in Florida,
simultaneously lucky and luckless, were seized by federal agents.
In summary: All Cuban refugees picked up at sea will be taken to the
U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. All Cuban refugees who reach
American soil will be held in detention centers as their cases are
studied.
By Friday evening, 373 more Cuban refugees had been rescued by the
Coast Guard, raising the year's total to 7,865 - already the highest
annual figure since the Mariel boat lift of 1980 brought 125,266
refugees to Florida.
Thousands more were poised on Cuba's shores Friday, some of them
listening to Clinton's comments as they were broadcast over Cuban
radio.
- Knight-Ridder News Service
Related story on page A1.
KEYWORDS: CUBAN REFUGEES IMMIGRATION POLICY U.S. NAVY ASYLUM by CNB