Smugglers Shot

The hot Cuba-related news story right now is the shooting of two Cuban-Americans who allegedly were attempting to smuggle people out of Cuba on Wednesday. They were shot at by the Cuban Coast Guard, in what is already being compared to the shoot down of the Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996. One of the victims died a while later in a hospital in the western province of Pinar del Rio.

The details of the story have so far come from Cuba, with state-run newspaper Granma taking the lead. You can bet it will be a while before the dust settles on this story. I'm not in favor of smugglers, it's dangerous and it's against the law. However, shooting at them appears to be quite a stretch and extremely unnecessary, unless the Cuban Coast Guard officials were in some kind of danger. We'll see.

The Herald story linked above had one quote which really jumped at me and surprised me. It was from activist Ramon Saul Sanchez, who recently went on a hunger strike when the group of 15 landed on the wrong bridge in the Keys and were repatriated.

Migrant smugglers ''are worse than the communists,'' said Miami activist Ramon Saul Sanchez, who has advocated harsher penalties for smugglers. ``If they got shot, I don't care. If they got shot because they were trying to smuggle people out of Cuba for money, they got what they deserve.''

Pretty strong words.

Rick has more on Stuck on the Palmetto, as does Val at Babalu and CB at KillCastro.