THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 4, 1994 TAG: 9411040738
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long : 118 lines
Two months after a human tidal wave forced them from their homes, more than 2,000 Navy and Marine Corps dependents are no closer to being reunited with the loved ones they left on duty at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The thousands of Haitian and Cuban migrants who displaced those Americans are equally unsure of the future. They live in tent cities under military guard, with prospects for return to their homelands or freedom in America clouded by the complexities of diplomacy and jurisprudence.
Largely forgotten by the American public amid publicity over the routing of Haiti's military dictatorship, the plight of the refugees and Guantanamo's military dependents is a nagging and potentially embarrassing problem for the Clinton administration. It could become particularly troublesome as the president prepares for a Florida summit with Latin American leaders in December.
This week, for the first time, Navy sources acknowledged that Guantanamo's military dependents may never be allowed to return there. Under study is a plan to permit only unaccompanied tours of duty at the base, one official said, because of the continuing uncertainty over its use as a refugee haven.
More than 40,000 migrants from Cuba and Haiti were taken to Guantanamo last summer by Coast Guard and Navy ships that intercepted the homemade boats and rafts they hoped would carry them to freedom in Florida. Some 21,000 Cubans and 6,000 Haitians were still at the base on Thursday. More than 8,000 Cubans have been relocated to camps in Panama.
The migrant influx strained the base infrastructure and endangered security, spurring the Pentagon to order the evacuation of U.S. dependents in August.
Scattered across the country, many of them taken in temporarily by relatives, the dependents are struggling to cope with the separation from husbands, wives, fathers and mothers still at the base.
The biggest problem is ``emotionally not knowing what to expect, not being able to make plans,'' said Judy Tennyson of Virginia Beach. Her husband, Navy Lt. Stan Tennyson, is a communications officer at Guantanamo.
``We keep hoping they'll tell us something,'' she said. But she's become convinced that the Navy just doesn't know when, or whether, Guantanamo's refugee crisis will end.
In a telephone interview, Lt. Tennyson said those still at Guantanamo also are in the dark about when operations might return to normal. ``We're being told basically that the base doesn't know anything as of yet,'' he said.
Tennyson said that most of the sailors and Marines permanently stationed at Guantanamo are working in support of a joint task force caring for the migrants. A few ships still show up for training exercises - Guantanamo is a principal training center for the Navy's Atlantic Fleet - ``but not on the schedule they were on,'' he said.
The training rituals made it unpopular among many sailors, but for years Guantanamo has been a coveted duty station for many Navy families.
Its attractions included a family atmosphere, security and year-round warm climate. ``There was a strong chapel community,'' Judy Tennyson remembered Thursday. ``It was just like extended family.''
``Living down there is a totally different situation'' from most bases, said Rick Seura of San Diego, a former Navy lieutenant whose wife remains in the service and is still at Guantanamo. ``The scuba diving's great,'' he said, and because no one could leave the base, the Navy had provided a lot of leisure time activities.
In Havana, meanwhile, U.S.-Cuban negotiations that could expedite the Cubans' return home or admission to America are moving slowly. And in Miami, lawsuits filed by Cuban and Haitian refugee advocates have at least temporarily halted even voluntary repatriations to either country.
American authorities believe most if not all of the Haitians at Guantanamo want or will want to return to Haiti as conditions there improve. The United States forced the island's military dictators from office last month, returning elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power.
Most of the Cubans still do not want to face Fidel Castro's government and secret police. Some, however, are homesick enough to take to the sea again; up to several dozen a day now flee the U.S. camps and try swimming along the coast for several miles to get back on Cuban soil.
Though the waters are infested with sharks and stinging jellyfish, swimming is safer than any land route back to Cuba. A minefield rings the base and Castro's army has guards in towers overlooking the boundaries.
Army Maj. Rick Thomas, a spokesman for the military task force running the migrant camps, said about 1,000 Cubans have asked to be sent home. Twenty-three were at the base airport last week waiting for a flight to Havana when a federal judge ordered all repatriations stopped.
The group was ``quite disappointed, to the point of tears, because their intent was to return to Cuba,'' Thomas said. Twenty-one of the 23 signed a letter to U.S. District Judge C. Clyde Atkins protesting his order.
The Justice Department is appealing Atkins' injunction against repatriations, with a hearing set for today in Atlanta.
Thomas said the Cubans who have asked to be sent home are being consolidated in a single tent city, with slightly higher fencing and more guard posts than at the other refugee camps. The camp also is closer than most to the base boundary, so that those who try to swim for home have a shorter distance to cover and a better chance of survival, Thomas said.
``Our mission is to care for and protect'' the migrants, Thomas said. Troops use fencing and guard towers to discourage runaways, he added, but the camps are not prisons.
The court action blocking repatriations was initiated by Cuban- and Haitian-Americans who contend that before removing the migrants from Guantanamo, the U.S. government should consider their applications for asylum. The advocacy groups also want each migrant counseled by an American lawyer before he or she decides whether to accept repatriation.
The refugees ``have due process rights under the laws of the United States,'' said Frank Angones, a Miami lawyer working on the case. ``There is no law in Guantanamo Bay other than U.S. law.''
But the administration argues that because Guantanamo is on Cuban soil, migrants there are not subject to U.S. law. It says the Cuban and Haitian refugees should return to their homelands, where they're free to go to U.S. offices and apply for asylum. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
About 21,000 Cuban refugees, along with 6,000 Haitians, are still
living in tent cities at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.
KEYWORDS: CUBA by CNB