Posted on 07/18/2007 9:02:13 AM PDT by The Bronze Titan
After 15 years and the loss of both legs, a Cuban rafter finally arrived in Miami to tell about his harrowing escape.
He had managed to crawl through the third barrier between Cuban territory and the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo when the warning flares lit the night sky.
Amado Veloso Vega thought he'd stay there till dawn, confident the Cuban guards could not enter the mine-laden strip dubbed ''no-man's land.'' But then he heard shots, and when he tried to move, a mine exploded, destroying his legs and flinging him 15 feet.
With no strength to shout, Veloso lay there until he heard the soldiers approach.
It was the beginning of a 15-year odyssey to get to the United States that ended this week. Veloso, 36, arrived in Miami on Monday with a U.S. State Department humanitarian visa.
Veloso is headed for Louisville, Ky., where the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which sponsored him, has found him a home.
''I'm still pinching myself, because I can't believe it. I'm in Miami!'' he said this week at his Miami hotel. ``I want to laugh because I believe I suffered enough. In Cuba, I was a walking dead man.''
The details of his horrific 1992 experience with the mine remain vivid today. ''Strips of flesh dangled from my legs. I was disfigured and my mouth was torn,'' he recalled. ``I couldn't react, though I didn't lose consciousness altogether.''
He'll never forget one man and what he said. Vega, a short man in uniform, told another that Veloso ''wouldn't make it alive'' to the hospital in Guantánamo.
''They started to play with me. They bayoneted me in the hand and in the leg and then pulled me off the fence,'' Veloso said, showing his scars.
Veloso was taken directly to the morgue. There, a doctor wouldn't give up, injecting him with adrenaline. Veloso was revived.
He slowly returned to health, but his nightmare wasn't over. For the attempted escape, Cuban authorities sentenced Veloso to two years of detention at his Havana home. A mystery remains: The mine that did so much damage was in Cuban territory, but at the time, some U.S.-planted mines were in the area, too.
Veloso said he tried to remake his life but that even relatives and friends turned their backs on him. He sought prosthetic legs at a Havana hospital. ``They concluded that my accident was due to my attempt to leave the country illegally and told me the [prostheses] they had were for revolutionaries and fighters back from Angola.''
Then he met activist Francisco Chaviano -- now a political prisoner in Cuba -- who arranged for the Cuban American National Foundation to send him a wheelchair. The chair was presented to Veloso in the name of Jorge Mas Canosa, the organization's founder. Veloso and a medical specialist friend fashioned a pair of plaster prostheses.
Early in 1994, Veloso applied for a refugee visa at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, but he says the office turned him down. He then wrote to U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who answered his letter and agreed to support his application, as did Rep. Lincoln Díaz Balart.
The association with Miami exile politicians caught the attention of the Cuban government. 'State Security constantly visited my home. `Who are you? First, Mas Canosa. Then, Ros-Lehtinen and Díaz-Balart. What are you up to?' they would ask me,'' Veloso said.
During the 1994 Cuban rafter crisis, Veloso tried to escape on a makeshift boat, but he was caught. Ensuing attempts failed as well.
``I lost track of all the arrests and fines. Something compelled me to look for what I couldn't find in Cuba: respect for a human being, respect for life and the right to overcome my handicap.''
In September 2006, during the police raids that preceded the Summit of Non-Aligned Countries in Havana, Veloso made his final attempt to flee. With 15 others he bought a homemade boat made of aluminum tubes. Police intercepted the others before they arrived at the beach, so he decided to travel alone from Cajío Beach in Havana.
'The boat was known as a `tube of toothpaste.' They are made of six aluminum tubes and cost about $4,000,'' he said.
The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted him 27 miles from the Mexican island of Cozumel and sent him to the place that reminded him of his personal tragedy: the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo.
There he remained for nine months, working as a bowling alley assistant. Part of the money he earned he sent to his mother, wife and two children who remain in Cuba.
''That people would risk their lives, like Amado did, that they would risk everything, clearly demonstrates the desperation of Cubans on the island,'' Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, told El Nuevo Herald on Tuesday.
Today Veloso wants to place flowers on Mas Canosa's grave. ''When I look at it from afar, I feel it was worth it,'' he said of his odyssey. ``It's a high price, but it's the price of liberty.''
If he were back in Cuba, he would still have good health care, Michael Moore says so.
This can’t be. Michael Moore has assured us that medical care in Cuba is far superior to the US variety.
Dang it. You guys beat me to it.
Please tell me the Gitmo prisoners don't have access to a bowling alley.
What was his name, Bob?
"Take the Ragheads Bowling, Take Them Bowling..."
We have Mexicans sneaking in to grab benefits and then we have brave men like this who understand what it's all about. If I had a choice I'd do the wall and a bridge to Cuba provided we got more like this guy!
Regards,
GtG
pong
Hey Fat Ass Mikey Moore. Did you interview this guy for Sicko? Didn’t think so you big blob of S&*t!
thanks for posting.
I almost thought he finally swam across the strait to Florida after having his legs bitten off by sharks.
Bob at sea and Matt when on land.
When I was growing up in Miami most of my Cuban friends would shame me with their patriotism to the United States. Every Cuban I ever knew loved this country as much or more than we do.
They still love Cuba but this is their country now. They are really wonderful people or should I say the ones I knew were wonderful people.
Are you sure Senor Vega isn’t bilking the system for benefits?
And let me get this straight, Illegals from Mexico are bad but illegals from Cuba are OK?
Eff that! Throw him back in the water!
Cubans are leaving Cuba due to the oppressive gov’t and crappy conditions.
Mexicans are leaving Mexico due to the oppressive gov’t and crappy conditions.
But because 1 group has to use boats they get preferential treatment - WTF world am I living in?!?
Illegal is illegal - I don’t care what color, what language they speak or what border they sneaked across, they broke the law and don’t belong here until they get in line with everyone else.
Just like the Mexicans, they should stay the @!#$ home and fix their own Gov’t/country. Start a revolution or insurgence, just don’t run and leave your family and friends behind to suffer.
The price of liberty would have been paid if he stayed and tried to overthrow the Castro regime. He paid the price of cowardice...he ‘cut and ran’
“After 15 years and the loss of both legs, a Cuban rafter finally arrived in Miami to tell about his harrowing escape.”
Did it take him 15 years to walk here?
Hey “Piss”,
I’m so glad that what makes this country great is not your kind. It is the kind that just got here without his two legs!
You may have just made the very first Camper Van Beethoven reference EVER on this site.
I wish I had a prize. I’d give it to you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.