Cuban Boats Ram Flotilla Visiting Site Where 41 Died

ABOARD THE DEMOCRACIA - For almost half an hour yesterday, a fishing boat filled with Cuban exiles from South Florida played cat and mouse with Cuban gunboats 11 miles off the Havana coastline.

The exiles sang the Cuban national anthem, threw flowers overboard and implored the military not to stop their peaceful mission.

Then, in one violent instant, the Cubans prevailed. Two huge, steel-hulled gunboats closed in on the 40-foot fishing boat Democracia and rammed it on both sides. Glass shattered and people went flying in every direction. Three men were injured, including Metro-Dade Commissioner Pedro Reboredo, whose foot was smashed between the Democracia and one of the gunboats.

"How can we lift the embargo for people like this? How can we renew relations with people like this? How can we trust people like this?" Reboredo said hours later, speaking from a hospital stretcher in Key West.

The confrontation in Cuban territorial waters was an echo of the tragedy of a year ago, when a Cuban gunboat rammed and sank tugboat Trece de Marzo after it had been commandeered by Cubans fleeing the island. That incident, in which 41 Cubans drowned, has been denounced by exiles as one of most brutal actions of the Cuban government in recent years.

The 13-boat flotilla, led by the Democracia, was on its way to lay wreaths in the area where the tugboat sank, about six miles off the coast.

"They showed the same brutality. We were able to see today the same brutality of the regime," said Arnaldo Iglesias, a Brothers to the Rescue pilot who observed the incident from the air. The volunteer pilots' group had a half-dozen planes monitoring the flotilla's mission.

The Democracia was one of 13 exile boats, carrying about 100 people, that sat sail from Key West at 6 a.m. yesterday. About 12:30 p.m., they got their first glimpse of the Havana skyline. Soon, a Cuban airplane showed up and began circling the flotilla.

About 2:35 p.m., the organizer of the flotilla, Ramon Saul Sanchez, announced the boat had passed the 12-mile boundary into Cuba's waters. The exiles began singing the Cuban anthem. It was then that Reboredo spotted several Cuban gunboats heading their way.

The brown and gray gunboats, twice the size of the Democracia, pulled up close. An officer dressed in blue took out a bullhorn and warned, in Spanish: "You have entered Cuban territorial waters. You have violated Cuban territorial waters."

Sanchez yelled back: "We are Cubans, you are Cubans. We have as much right to be here in Cuban waters as you."

One of the gunboats, No. 532, made a run at the Democracia, missing it by 10 feet.

The Democracia continued toward the coast as the exiles began throwing flowers in the water.

The Cuban officer again took up his bullhorn and screamed: "You have violated Cuban national waters. We will not be responsible for what happens."

At 2:50 p.m., the two gunboats closed in on the Democracia from behind, sandwiching it on both sides. With a loud thud, the gunboats crashed into the fiberglass hull, knocking the exiles off their feet.

They had gotten nowhere near the spot where the tugboat sank last year.

But members of the expedition said later that the mission was a success from a public-relations standpoint, bringing more attention to the abuse against the tugboat committed by Castro's forces last year.

Spokesmen for the Cuban government, reached by phone yesterday in Havana and Washington, declined to comment.

The State Department told the exiles last week the U.S. could not protect them against arrest in Cuban waters but that they were not violating U.S. law.