The Miami Herald
February 25, 2001

Downed pilots remembered with flight, flowers

                                      BY PAUL BRINKLEY-ROGERS

                                      When the lilies tumbled out of the sky on Saturday at a
                                      place Cuban Americans now call Martyr's Point, there were
                                      no hostile MiGs there to blast the flight of three small
                                      Brothers to the Rescue planes out of the sky.

                                      Brothers co-founder José Basulto, at the controls of a
                                      Cessna 337, led the formation, just as he did five years ago
                                      when rockets knocked down two other planes of the same
                                      kind. Killed were his friends, Carlos Alberto Costa and Pablo
                                      Morales, both 29, Mario de la Peña, 24, and Armando
                                      Alejandre, 45.

                                      Radio traffic from Havana airport officials crackled over his
                                      headset as he circled the spot, reciting a name of each of
                                      ``our martyrs'' as he hurled bouquets onto a glistening sea.
                                      The gleaming white Coast Guard cutter Legare was on
                                      station below in international waters, its radar probing the
                                      skies for any fighter jets from Cuban military fields near
                                      Havana, just 20 miles to the south.

                                      The anniversary was a day full of sombre theater and tearful
                                      emotions for the 50 Cuban American friends and family
                                      members of the lost fliers who gathered at Opa-locka Airport
                                      to watch the planes take off in the early afternoon.

                                      A similar memorial flight has been made every year since
                                      the shoot-down, an act that dragged U.S.-Cuba relations to
                                      a new low and resulted in legislation toughening the
                                      decades-old embargo. In October, the Clinton administration
                                      agreed to release $58 million in frozen Cuban assets as part
                                      of a court-ordered award of more than $100 million to the
                                      family members of the four pilots.

                                      Eva Barbas, 75, the silver-haired mother of Morales, came
                                      with four red silk roses -- one for each of the dead -- which
                                      also were dropped at the site. Prayers were offered.

                                      Nine-year-old Reynaldo ``R.J.'' Martín, son of Ray Martín,
                                      who was a crew member on one of Saturday's group of
                                      aircraft, hugged his mother, Maria, and wept. She said he
                                      worried about his dad's safety.

                                      LAST-MINUTE RULING

                                      The flight came only hours after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court
                                      of Appeals in Atlanta ruled that Basulto could make the
                                      flight.

                                      Randall Marshall, legal director for the American Civil
                                      Liberties Union in Florida, said the court stayed a gag order
                                      issued by U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard that could have
                                      grounded Basulto, a witness in the ongoing Cuban spy case
                                      in Miami that Lenard is hearing. In question was whether
                                      Basulto had violated Lenard's order by announcing that he
                                      planned to participate in Saturday's airborne memorial.

                                      The lead defendant in the spy case, Gerardo Hernández, is
                                      specifically charged with conspiracy to commit murder by
                                      allegedly giving Cuba the flight plan of the Brothers planes.

                                      Also flying Saturday were Aurelio Hurtado De Mendoza, who
                                      flew with Basulto, and Billy Schuss, Raul Martínez and
                                      Guillermo Lares, an Argentine volunteer.

                                      Two Federal Aviation Administration inspectors, Daniel
                                      Castro and Mark Hemmerle, checked out the planes and
                                      passed all three. They stood to one side to watch the aircraft
                                      take off and head west toward the Everglades, and then
                                      south to Flamingo and the Florida Keys.

                                      OVER THE STRAITS

                                      A few minutes out over the Straits of Florida, as they left
                                      airspace controlled by Miami and entered airspace
                                      controlled by Cuba, the pilots tried radioing Havana Centro --
                                      Havana air traffic control. Sometimes when Brothers to the
                                      Rescue planes announce themselves the Cubans reply, and
                                      sometimes they do not, Basulto said.

                                      But on Saturday, Havana was quick to acknowledge the
                                      flight. The controller was also quick to warn the pilots that
                                      they were entering a zona peligroso -- a danger zone.

                                      Basulto said Havana claims the zone is used by Cuban
                                      military aircraft for training, ``but they don't have much
                                      money nowadays, and so their planes don't fly much.
                                      Nowadays, the danger zone is for us.''
 

                                      REPEATED WARNINGS

                                      Both Basulto and his copilot kept a watchful look at the
                                      horizon for hostile aircraft. A haze obscured the Cuban
                                      coast, and clouds also interfered with visibility. But other
                                      than the repeated warnings from Havana -- very much like
                                      the warnings issued five years ago before the missiles were
                                      fired -- no threat materialized.

                                      The aircraft circled at 500 feet over Martyr's Point.

                                      Basulto recited the names of the dead fliers over the radio,
                                      meaning that the Havana controllers got the message, too.
                                      The operator admonished him for using the radio frequency --
                                      also used by commercial airliners landing at Havana's Jose
                                      Martí International Airport -- for the ceremony.

                                      But Havana was courteous, even after Basulto declared that
                                      his friends had been ``murdered'' and appealed for ``justice
                                      for this crime.''

                                      Bringing Fidel Castro and other Cuban officials to trial for the
                                      death of the pilots is an aim of both Basulto and the
                                      relatives.

                                      Before the fight took off, Basulto said Gov. Jeb Bush -- who
                                      was in Miami on Saturday to talk with members of the
                                      Cuban community -- had agreed to deliver a letter from Eva
                                      Barbas to the governor's brother, President Bush. The letter,
                                      he said, asks the president to indict the Cuban leader, who
                                      Basulto claims gave the order to shoot down the planes.