USA: FLORIDA: CUBAN EXILE GROUP OPEN MUSEUM

(14 Jul 1996) Spanish/Nat

A Cuban exile group has opened a museum to honour those Cuban rafters who died in their search for freedom.

The Key West museum used to be a transit centre providing social services to those who made it to the American coast.

But with the decrease in the number of rafters reaching the U-S this year, the organisers decided to turn the centre into a museum to honour the dead.

When over 30-thousand Cuban rafters floated onto the Florida shores during 1993-94, the transit centre in Key West in Florida was at its busiest.

The centre provided refugees with various social services - from immigration counseling to placing and reuniting families.

But the number of rafters reaching U-S shores has fallen dramatically as a result of changes in U-S immigration policy toward Cubans.

This prompted the centre's organisers to change direction.

SOUNDBITE: (Spanish)
"The suffering of a people and relatives who have come to mourn their dead - what we are showing are the dead. We will not be able to finish our work until we can tell the world: mission accomplished."
SUPER CAPTION: Arturo Cobo - Director of the Refugee Transit House

Organisers decided to turn the centre into a museum to commemorate the Cubans who died while trying to reach the U-S.

The Florida Straits is a difficult crossing, ripped by strong currents and unpredictable weather - it's thought thousands died trying to make it across.

The museum also honours those trying to save the rafters - including Pablo Morales - the pilot of a Brothers to the Rescue plane shot down by the Cuban airforce.

Present at Saturday's opening ceremony was a survivor of the 1994 sinking of a fleeing tug, reportedly by Cuban naval gunboats.

Forty-one refugees died in the incident - Sergio Perodin lost several members of his family.

SOUNDBITE: (Spanish)
We received blows of all sorts until they cracked our boat and finally sunk it.
(Question: How many people? You lost relatives, no?)
Yes, I lost my wife, my oldest son who was 11 years old and my wife's uncle who was also travelling with us.
SUPER CAPTION: Sergio Perodin - Survivor 13 March 1994 tugboat sinking incident

The museum opened on the same day a Cuban exile flotilla returned safely to Key West.

The boats had traveled to the edge of Cuban waters to pay their respects to the 41 Cubans who died in the sinking of the tug.

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