CUBA: CUBA AGREES TO CRACK DOWN ON RAFTERS FLEEING TO THE UNITED STATES, BRITISH TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY MINISTER ARRIVES TO DISCUSS POSSIBLE BUSINESS PROJECTS

Record ID: 337820

  • Title: CUBA: CUBA AGREES TO CRACK DOWN ON RAFTERS FLEEING TO THE UNITED STATES, BRITISH TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY MINISTER ARRIVES TO DISCUSS POSSIBLE BUSINESS PROJECTS
  • Date: 11th September 1994
  • Summary: HAVANA AND NEAR HAVANA, CUBA (SEPTEMBER 11, 1994) NEAR HAVANA 1. GV: CROWD AND BOATS ON SHORE 0.03 2. SVS: PEOPLE PREPARING TO LEAVE ON RAFTS (4 SHOTS) 0.16 3. SV: PEOPLE WATCHING 0.19 4. SV: SOLDIER WATCHING FROM BEACH (2 SHOTS) 0.27 5. GV: POLICE ARRIVING 0.33 6. GV/SVS: POLICE CONFISCATING TYRES AND OTHER RAFT MATERIAL (3 SHOTS) 0.48 7. SV/GV: POLICE TAKING AWAY INFLATED INNER TUBE (2 SHOTS) 1.03 HAVANA 8. GV: BRITISH TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY MINISTER IAN TAYLOR LEAVING AIRCRAFT/GETTING ON BUS (2 SHOTS) 1.15 9. GV: TAYLOR SEATED WITH CUBAN OFFICIAL 1.19 10.GV: TAYLOR TALKING ABOUT HIS VISIT (ENGLISH) 1.34 11.SV: MEMBERS OF MEDIA (2 SHOTS) 1.45 TRANSCRIPT OF SEQUENCE 10: TAYLOR: "THE PURPOSE OF THE TRIP IS FIRST FOR ME TO TRY TO ASSESS THE EXTENT OF THE ECONOMIC REFORMS, WHICH THE GOVERNMENT OF CUBA HAS COMMENCED. ONE OF THE COMPANIES HERE IS FOR EXAMPLE IN AVIATION....." Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
  • Embargoed: 26th September 1994 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: HAVANA AND NEAR HAVANA, CUBA
  • City:
  • Country: Cuba CARIBBEAN
  • Reuters ID: LVA1UFRWRDXVA2H76BXTCDY127FA
  • Story Text: Dozens of Cuban rafters set out to sea Sunday (September 11) ahead of a Tuesday clamp-down by authorities on departures that will end a month of a blind-eye policy toward boat people.

    The Cuban government, began moves on Saturday (September 10) to halt the exodus of homemade rafts, inner tubes and flimsy boats from leaving the island.

    The moves appear to be an attempt to fulfil a deal with the United States (U.S.) to end the flow of boat people.

    Late on Saturday night the authorities issued a statement explaining the deal with the United States and "exhorting" citizens to stop leaving the country by their own means.

    The statement, published in the Communist Party newspaper Granma, said that from Tuesday onward all attempts to leave will be stopped by force and raft materials confiscated.

    But the clampdown is unlikely to deter many of the rafters. At Cojimar beach near the capital Havana, focal point for many departures, people said they would try to make the journey anyway.

    Thousands of Cubans have fled the island during the past few months, attempting to leave a nation where the economy was wrecked by the collapse of the former Soviet Union and of communist regimes in other East Bloc nations, which were important trading partners for Cuba.

    Cuba has begun a cautious reform programmme, which was to be one of the subjects British Trade and Technology Minister Ian Taylor was expected to discuss during his visit to the country, the first by a British minister for 20 years.

    Taylor arrived on Sunday (September 11) with a business delegation representing around a dozen firms from sectors such as sugar, banking and construction.

    Talking to reporters on his arrival at Havana, Taylor said Britain believed it should not be left behind as other European Union countries and North American free Trade Area (NAFTA) members Mexico and Canada took advantage of openings in the Cuban economy.

    He said he wanted to see "whether we believe that they (the reforms) are sufficiently strongly founded to lead us to encouarge further and more extensive commercial relationships between British companies and the Cuban economy".

    Britain would make clear if it felt there were areas where reforms should go further to encourage trade, he added.

    Reflecting Cuba's economic crisis, Anglo-Cuban trade fell from 134 million U.S. dollars in 1989 to just 25 million in the first half of 1994.


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