HAVANA- Cuban opposition figures and organizations are commemorating this July 13 the sinking of the tugboat 13 de marzo, which occurred 30 years ago about seven miles off the coast of the island, with a death toll of 37, including 12 women and 11 children.
“Today we commemorate the 30th anniversary of the 13 de Marzo tugboat and remember those who lost their lives. As your United States Senator, I will not stop fighting to hold the Cuban regime accountable until a new day of freedom arrives in Cuba,” wrote US legislator Rick Scott on his X account.
The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights, which joined the calls for justice, posted on the same social network: “The cries of the women and children who were on board the deck of the tugboat 13 de marzo did not prevent the attack from stopping. The vessel sank with a death toll of 41 people.”
The OCDH recalled that many people perished in the shipwreck because they were forced to take refuge in the engine room due to the high pressure of the water jets that were thrown at everyone on deck.
“Survivors”
Survivors have also claimed that the crews of the four Cuban state vessels sent to prevent the ship from leaving were dressed in civilian clothes and did not come to their aid as it sank.
The exile-based organization Free Cuban Foundation echoed an initiative promoted by the executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, John J. Suárez, and the spokesman for the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), Regis Iglesias Ramírez, in an article published in Diario las Américas.
This Saturday, July 13th at 6:00 PM, a 13-minute silent vigil is being held at Florida International University’s Main Fountain on the 30th anniversary of the sinking of the tugboat.
Iglesias Ramírez and Suárez have also requested that a petition be signed for the expulsion of the Cuban regime from the UN Human Rights Council.
Report
“If any event represented the perverse essence of the Castro brothers’ gangster regime, the sinking of the tugboat 13 de marzo in July 1994 would undoubtedly have all the aspects to be, despite the endless list of crimes of that communist tyranny, one of the most infamous,” wrote the authors of the article in tribute to the victims of the incident.
In the early hours of July 13, 1994, some 68 people attempted to escape from the prison island by boarding a tugboat in the port of Havana. The effort was carried out by the ship’s crew, who had carefully planned the details of their escape in full agreement with each other, as they recalled.
“As the group left the mouth of the bay, they were immediately pursued by similar state vessels, which began to attack them a few miles from the coast on March 13, spraying powerful water cannons at them, sweeping away men, women and children who begged their attackers to stop from the side. The objective was to sink the boat and kill its crew. They succeeded when the tug, its holds flooded by the water launched against the families who were trying to seek freedom, turned over and the rest of the crew who had not been swept into the sea by the water jets of their pursuers ended up in the depths of the Florida Straits, just seven miles from Havana Bay,” they said.
Iglesias and Suárez cited other events also marked by the “cruelty, arrogance, and cowardice” of the regime, such as the massacre in Río Canimar, Matanzas, where soldiers machine-gunned a boat with 53 people, including children, in 1980; or the Barlovento massacre in Havana in 1962, when 20 people were arrested and six killed in another escape attempt.
“Unfortunately, the Cuban communist regime has not lost its essence over the last 65 years. Not even now. Only in October 2022 did a Cuban border guard sink a boat that was trying to rescue relatives on the island, killing seven Cubans, including a two-year-old girl,” they noted.
Thirty-seven people were the fatal victims of that genocidal act on July 13, 1994; 31 managed to survive, but have never been able to overcome the heartbreaking trauma caused by such unjustifiable cruelty. The perpetrators were publicly justified by Fidel Castro and even decorated. “In 30 years not much has changed and this crime remains unpunished,” they denounced.
Source: With information from Diario de Cuba
