According to Alex Larzelere, the author of Castro's Ploy - America's Dilemma: The 1980 Cuban Boatlift, the Cubans who eventually left the country in 1980 from Mariel Harbour were apparently taken by bus from Havana to compounds established in Mosquito, "two and a half miles east of the entrance to Mariel Harbor" (1988, 126). Then, Cubans at the compounds were taken by bus from Mosquito to the docks to board the boats (Larzelere 1998). This information was corroborated by an article in the Christian Science Monitor that reported that a witness aboard one of the American boats had seen Cubans disembark from a bus stopped near one of the docks (22 May 1980).

Limited information on how long the Cubans had to wait to leave the country in 1980 was found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate. However, according to Larzelere, approximately 600 Cuban citizens had been processed and were ready to leave the country when the government suspended departures from Mariel on 25 September 1980 (1988, xxxii, 367). Larzelere wrote that these people had to wait until 19 November 1980, when flights organized by the Church World Service began to take them to Miami (ibid., 367-368).

Information on how the government treated those who stayed in Cuba was limited among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate. According to Americas Watch, 32 people remained in the Embassy of Peru after 1980 (Jan. 1989, 52). All except three accepted "amnesties" and returned to their homes (Americas Watch Jan. 1989, 52). However, several of these people are feared to have been subjected to government reprisals (ibid.). During a 19 April 2000 telephone interview, the director of the human rights program at the Cuba American National Foundation (CANF) in Miami said that many of those who went to the Embassy of Peru were probably imprisoned by the government for treason, if they were members of the security forces, or for attempting to leave the country illegally. However, the director said that he did not know of any case in which a person had been imprisoned for more than ten years (CANF 19 Apr. 2000).

The director stated that his organization does not have a list of people who might have been imprisoned for going to the Embassy of Peru (ibid.). No other information on the names of the persons imprisoned could be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate within the time constraints for this Response.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

Americas Watch. January 1989. Human Rights in Cuba: The Need to Sustain the Pressure. NY: Americas Watch Committee.

The Christian Science Monitor [Boston]. 22 May 1980. Gil Klein. "Cuba: Anguish of a Shrimp Boat Exodus." (NEXIS)

Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), Miami. 19 April 2000. Telephone interview with the director of the human rights program.

Larzelere, Alex. 1988. Castro's Ploy - America's Dilemma: The 1980 Cuban Boatlift. Washington: National Defense University Press.

Additional Sources Consulted

Center for International Policy

Cuban Committee for Human Rights

IRB Databases

LEXIS/NEXIS

World News Connection (WNC)

Internet sites, including:

Amnesty International

Cuban Information Archives

CubaNet

Digital Freedom Network

Human Rights Watch