Is he dead or alive? Family agonizes after man heads for U.S.

By TRACEY EATON / The Dallas Morning News

HAVANA – It's up to God now.

That's what Maria del Carmen Calzada thinks of her husband's fate.

He could be gone by now. Eaten alive by sharks. Dead of starvation. Drowned. Or he could be alive, for all she knows, clinging to a rickety, homemade, poor excuse for
a raft drifting aimlessly somewhere in the Florida Strait.

She doesn't know. And she cries every day – wondering, agonizing.

Her story is dreadful, but not hers alone. Over the past year, U.S. authorities say, at least 200 people from Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic have perished, dying
horrible deaths, while trying to reach the United States.

Their deaths are almost always unheralded, even insignificant to some. But for the families of those looking for a better way of life, their plight, struggle and sacrifice
means everything.

Just ask Ms. Calzada.

Her husband, Barbaro Antonio Vela, president of a little-known dissident group called the January 6 Civic Movement, left Cuba the night of Dec. 8 in a flimsy, motorless
vessel equipped with nothing more than a hand-sewn makeshift sail, a few pieces of cloth patched together.

"I told him, 'Don't go, old man.' But he couldn't stand it anymore. He said he'd rather die at sea than in the dungeon of some jail," Ms. Calzada said.

Her husband departed from Alamar, a patchwork of Soviet-style concrete block apartments east of Havana. Six others were reportedly with him, although it could have
been seven. No one seems to know for sure.

All the travelers are members of the political opposition, according to the Cuban Liberty Council, an increasingly influential organization in Miami that opposes Cuban
President Fidel Castro.

The U.S. Coast Guard would not comment Tuesday on their fate, even to say whether they had been found, dead or alive. That's the policy, a spokesman said.

American diplomats in Havana had no response, either. They couldn't say why the rafters hadn't been given political asylum. Mr. Vela had applied for a visa, his wife
said.

Nor could U.S. officials confirm that the rafters were dissidents – and, in fact, a spokesperson said, U.S. authorities try to not label any Cuban as a dissident because
they know that many members of the supposed opposition are actually Cuban spies.

Ms. Calzada said the whole affair has her going out of her mind.

"I'm desperate," she said, wiping away tears.

She said her husband is a former political prisoner who served three years in jail for his dissident activities. His goal is a democratic Cuba – "a Cuba without Castro," she
said.

Mr. Castro's supporters say dissidents are often malcontents and rabble-rousers who are on the U.S. government payroll, an accusation American authorities deny.

Whatever the case, Mr. Vela and six other Cubans remain missing.

Mr. Vela is 48. His wife is 62. But she said that the age difference never got in the way of love and that they spent 25 years together before he took off.

The problem, she explained, was the never-ending battle between the United States and Cuba, and the virtual impossibility of many Cubans to leave their homeland in
search of political and – even more often – economic freedom.

Mr. Vela had protested. He had spoken up, saying Cuba should change, should open up. But that only brought him harassment from the police, his wife said. About 100
dissidents, journalists and others were arrested in March. Seventy-five were sentenced to six to 28 years in prison. The other 25 were freed. But they remain under
intense scrutiny, they and their relatives say.

A few days before he began his fateful journey into the dark sea, authorities threatened her husband with a 20-year prison term, Ms. Calzada said.

"You're on top of the list of 25," she said authorities told him.

Mr. Vela finally decided to leave because "he couldn't stand it," his wife said.

He has no relatives in the U.S. and left his wife and daughter behind. But he was desperate to flee the island, she said.

"I ask God and everyone in the world to help and see if they can find him. I really don't know where he is. I don't know! Why! Why!" Ms. Calzada said before breaking
into tears again. "It's as if the earth swallowed him up. Or the sea."

Mr. Vela and the others left Cuba with little water or food. "A few pieces of cake and some sugar," Ms. Calzada said.

Mr. Vela's daughter, Yeny Vera Calzada, 20, said she's hurt that her father left "because he was going to risk his life at sea. But I respect his decision."

He only wants "freedom and democracy" for Cuba, she said.

"The Cuban government controls everything," she said. "It keeps all of us as prisoners."

Cuban authorities vehemently reject that view, saying that the government is one of the most just in the world, providing peace, security and free schooling and medical
care for everyone.