Cuban asylum-seekers crash stolen bus into Mexican embassy grounds
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Your support makes all the difference.More than 20 Cuban asylum-seekers were occupying the Mexican embassy in Havana yesterday after crashing a stolen bus through the gates to the compound.
A dozen of the men stood on the roof, shouting anti-Castro slogans and vowing to jump if the police tried to remove them. "We can stay here four years, ten years, but we are not going to leave!" one man shouted from the roof. "Down with Fidel!" chanted others.
Fidel Castro arrived at the embassy a few hours after the bus ambush on Wednesday at 9.30pm local time. The President was cheered by onlookers.
Cuba accused the American government's Radio Marti of provoking asylum-seekers by repeatedly broadcasting statements by the Mexican Foreign Secretary, Jorge Castaneda, that, it said, were "cynically manipulated" into "an open invitation to occupy the embassy. The dastardly news was broadcast eight times," according to the Cuban governnment statement, which called the Radio Marti reports a "gross provocation". Radio Marti is operated mainly by Cuban exiles in Miami and broadcasts anti-Castro items.
Radio Marti says Mr Casteneda announced that "the doors of the embassy of Mexico on the island are open to all Cuban citizens". Mr Casteneda says "radical elements" in Miami had twisted his words to provoke an invasion of the embassy compound.
He told Mexico's Radio Red network: "Those radical elements doubtlessly wanted to use my declarations about the Mexican cultural centre in Miami, twisting them ... to create what we might call a small provocation." Mr Castaneda said Mexican officials were trying to convince the Cubans to leave. He said they had not sought asylum. "They have not shown any political motivation for their entry into the embassy," he said, adding that they appeared to be jobless people looking for better opportunities in Mexico.
He said the position appeared to be easing after the deployment of security forces in the area at Mexico's request "so that there are no more buses or more people trying to enter by force".
Andres Ordonez, the Mexican embassy's second-in- command, confirmed 21 men had forced their way in. A spate of similar embassy occupations in the spring of 1994 preceded an exodus of about 32,000 Cubans to the United States.
In 1997, hundreds of pro- government workers and student blockaded the Spanish embassy in Havana after false reports that Spain would issue visas to Cubans.
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