Cuban officials blamed U.S. policies for these incidents. Washington makes it difficult for Cubans who want to emigrate to obtain visas to move to the United States. At the same time, Cubans who set foot on Florida’s shores, regardless of the means they used to get there, are granted virtually automatic permanent residency as codified in the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. If picked up on the high seas, they are supposed to be returned to Cuba.

The first recent incident took place July 14. Three men in their 20s, armed with handguns and knives, overpowered a guard at the port of La Coloma, southeast of Pinar del Rio, and attempted to hijack a fishing boat to the United States. Unable to operate the craft, they kidnapped a boat’s captain who escaped by jumping overboard.

Seeing the commotion, fishermen and Cuban security agents in boats surrounded the vessel, blocking its path.

A women with her two sons, 10 and 17 years old, who had been part of the hijacking, at first pretended to be a hostage. It later became clear, however, that she was complicit in the criminal act. During the standoff the hijackers shot and seriously wounded the 10-year-old child in the head. The woman then fled the boat along with the 17-year-old, who carried the wounded boy in his arms.

When Cuban authorities boarded the vessel later they found two hijackers dead and a third wounded, who died shortly afterwards. The men had apparently shot each other.

According to a statement by Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior, the three had several convictions on their records, including for cattle theft and armed robberies.

The next day a boat belonging to the Cuban company GeoCuba with 15 people on board was hijacked in Camaguey. The boat made it into international waters with the Cuban Coast Guard in pursuit until it reached Bahamian waters.

The Cuban Ministry of Interior stated that “it is not the policy of the government of Cuba to attack hijacked vessels with people on board due to the serious risk of accidents and loss of lives.” Since the boat was heading to the United States, the Cuban government requested that Washington return the vessel and the hijackers to Cuba. At first Washington claimed this was not a hijacking but a “theft.” According to the July 18 Miami Herald, however, after the FBI and a federal prosecutor interviewed 15 passengers on the ship, they concluded “the vessel may have been hijacked after all.”

Cuban authorities informed the U.S. State Department that if the hijackers of the GeoCuba are returned to the island they will not face the death penalty.

On July 21, James Cason, chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, issued a statement to the Cuban media discouraging hijackings and saying Washington will honor its immigration accords with Havana. He also announced that the man who had hijacked an AN-24 plane in Cuba on March 31 had been convicted by a U.S. court July 10 and faces up to 20 years in prison.

The same day, the U.S. Coast Guard returned to Cuba the 15-person group on GeoCuba, including three guards who had been overpowered by the hijackers.

On April 11, after a speedy trial, Cuban authorities convicted and executed three ringleaders of the hijacking of a passenger ferry in Havana eight days earlier—one in a string of such incidents over the previous eight months. Until the latest two attempts, there had been no hijackings since that time.  
 
 
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