-Caveat Lector-
"Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms countered the
claim by explaining the US was providing information to Cuba on suspected
drug planes that could have prompted Cuba to shoot down civilian planes."
Panel Urges Clinton To Indict Castro
By TOM RAUM
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of a House panel and Cuban-American leaders
accused the Clinton administration today of stalling in a long-running
investigation of Cuba's shooting down of two civilian aircraft in 1996.
They suggested Fidel Castro should be indicted in the inquiry. The episode
over the Florida Straits, between Cuba and the Florida Keys, claimed the
lives of four.
``Castro ordered the shoot down. We need President Clinton to say that Fidel
Castro does not enjoy immunity as head of state for this crime. That's what
needs to happen here,'' George Fowler, general counsel of the Cuban American
National Foundation, told the House Judiciary crime subcommittee.
The subcommittee's chairman, Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., agreed that Castro
should be indicted. ``I will do whatever it takes within my power'' to bring
the case to a close, including finding out why U.S. fighter jets were not
scrambled to intercept the Cuban MIGs that shot down two civilian planes in
the February 1996 incident, McCollum said.
He said that, if necessary, Congress would issue subpoenas to force
appearances by administration witnesses who have refused to appear.
Jeffrey Houlihan, a Customs radar operator in Riverside, Calif. who followed
the incident on his screen, said he was ``startled'' when he saw images of
the three small Cessna civilian aircraft being pursued by fast-moving blips
he took to be Russian-built Cuban MiGs.
He told the panel he immediately made an emergency call to the Southeast Air
Defense unit at Florida's Tyndall Air Force Base and was told, ``We're
handling it. Don't worry.''
Houlihan told the panel he did not know why the Air Force did not launch its
own fighter jets. A former Air Force radar controller, Houlihan said it was
standard practice for the United States to put its planes in the sky whenever
a Cuban fighter is seen heading toward the United States.
``I asked the Air Force - are you seeing what I'm seeing? It looked like two
aircraft were shot down,'' Houlihan said.
Jose Basulto, the pilot of the only surviving aircraft, said two Cuban MiGs
pursued him for 53 minutes before abandoning the chase about 30 miles west of
Key West.
Basulto is the founder and president of the Miami-based Brothers to the
Rescue, which routinely flies humanitarian missions to help refugees in rafts
and boats.
The Defense and Justice Department were invited but declined to send
witnesses to the hearing, McCollum said.
In a December 1998 memo, the Pentagon's inspector general, Eleanor Hill, told
lawmakers that ``national security classifications prohibit us from providing
detailed responses,'' including to the question of why U.S. jets were not
launched in the incident.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., who is of Cuban descent, told the panel,
``We know who is ultimately responsible for this blatant act of aggression.
Yet, the Department of Justice has yet to conclude its investigation and
issue indictments against the Castro regime.''
In December 1997, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence King in Miami demanded
that the Cuban government pay a bit more than $187 million to the relatives
of three Cuban-American pilots who died in the incident. The fourth man
killed was not a U.S. citizen, and his relatives were not eligible to sue
under the terrorism law, the court held.
Cuba maintains that the planes violated Cuban airspace and even flew over
land to scatter political pamphlets.
Meanwhile, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C.,
and House International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y.,
jointly wrote to President Clinton demanding that the United States halt
cooperation with Cuba in the war on drugs.
They protested that the United States was providing information to Cuba on
suspected drug planes that could prompt Cuba to shoot down civilian planes.
``Providing such information risks exposing U.S. officials to criminal
liability,'' Helms and Gilman wrote.
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