A plan to recover fallen comrades' remains at the Bay of Pigs has caused a bitter rift among fellow veterans and relatives who want nothing to do with Castro.

By DAVID ADAMS, Times Latin America Correspondent
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 26, 2002

MIAMI -- More than 40 years after the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, a small group of veterans is seeking to recover the battlefield remains of their fallen comrades.

But what began as a mission of reconciliation is fast turning into a political nightmare.

Despite securing the unlikely cooperation of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, the group's effort is being blocked by fellow veterans and relatives of those who died.

"Our mission is to reunite these relatives with the remains of their loved ones and to give them closure," said Mario Cabello, 59, one of the founders of the Bay of Pigs Missing in Action Recovery Committee. "It is absolutely without comprehension to me how anyone can turn their back on this effort."

Cabello's proposal has raised a storm of protest from hard-line anti-Castro leaders of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association, which represents surviving members of the 2506 Brigade, Washington's secret army of Cuban exiles.

"These men are traitors to the Cuban cause," said association president Juan Perez Franco. "They have been expelled from our organization."

Cuban analysts say they are not surprised by the current tiff. While the recovery idea might make sense to many minds, after all these years the Bay of Pigs remains a touchy subject for some Cuban exiles.

"It's a deep, personal moral issue," said Damian Fernandez, a Cuban-American scholar at Florida International University. "It's bound to flare up in this kind of contentious recriminations."

The recovery mission also reflects a fundamental fault-line in Cuban exile thinking that divides reformist voices in the community, willing to talk with the Cuban government, versus old-style hard-liners who viscerally oppose any contact with Castro.

The recovery idea was first raised privately with Cuban officials last year at a conference in Havana to mark the 40th anniversary of the CIA-sponsored invasion. The three-day encounter was the first time that veterans from both sides had met to officially discuss the events of April 1961, which cost the lives of 108 Cuban exiles and four American pilots.

Cabello was one of five Miami veterans who attended the conference, which included a historic handshake with Castro. While in Havana, Cabello and another veteran, Jose Luis Hernandez, 65, seized the opportunity to write a letter to Castro raising the issue of the unburied remains.

The response came far sooner than they expected. Before the conference was over they were approached by Gen. Jose Ramon Fernandez, one of the field commanders who repelled the invasion force. He told them Castro approved.

Word of the arrangement was kept quiet. Both sides were apparently aware of the likely controversy. For their part the veterans say they felt it only fair to consult the families of the dead first.

But that's where the problems started.

"The big hurdle is to find the relatives of those who died," said Cabello. "Only the Veterans Association has all the details -- and maybe the CIA."

Although the Veterans Association only represents surviving members of the 2506 Brigade, it has ties to another group representing relatives of all brigade members, dead and alive.

The CIA also presumably possesses a list; according to several brigade members and relatives, the agency continues to pay a small pension to the widows of those who died in the Bay of Pigs.

But Cabello said the Veterans Association is refusing to cooperate. Moreover, the association expelled Cabello and Hernandez once they had returned from Havana.

They have since sent letters to every surviving brigade member outlining the recovery project. So far they have received seven letters of support, as well as an equal number of hostile responses.

A letter addressed to the association president, Perez Franco, was returned unopened.

But Cabello believes there are many other brigade members who are too afraid to speak up because of the well-documented climate of intolerance in Miami's Cuban exile community.

"There are a lot of people who support us," said Angelo Kennedy, one of the veterans supporting the project. "But they prefer to remain anonymous. If you have a business in this town it's easy to be targeted. They can close your doors."

Efforts to publicize the Cuban MIA issue also have been ignored by Miami's Spanish-language media, which tend to sympathize with Cuban exile hard-liners.

Cabello is looking for a way to contact the CIA to ask for its help. But he's not optimistic.

"They have never officially recognized us," he said. "We were a disposable army."

Indeed, Brigade 2506 was never a formal unit of the U.S. armed forces. Its members were covertly recruited, mostly in Miami, and trained in Guatemala, launching the invasion from the east coast of Nicaragua.

Outgunned by Castro's forces at the Bay of Pigs, most of the 1,200 members of the invasion force were captured and jailed. Of the 108 who died, some drowned in the bay when their ship was sunk by enemy fire. Others fell on dry land, the whereabouts of their remains unknown. Five were executed. At least nine prisoners suffocated while being transported in a sealed container to Havana.

Critics say that without U.S. government support the recovery effort would be impossible. But Cabello's group believes that using modern techniques, the remains could be found by forensics experts.

"This sort of thing has been done all over the world," said Cabello. He cited the recovery of American war dead in Vietnam.

But all that remains a moot point while the names of the relatives are unknown.

In a telephone interview, Perez Franco, the association president, confirmed he would not hand over any names of relatives.

"I have interviewed every family member. They are all opposed," he said.

He also declined to supply any names of relatives to the St. Petersburg Times, although he agreed to contact some on the paper's behalf.

Half a dozen relatives later contacted the paper to vehemently express their support for Perez Franco.

"I don't want the government of Cuba to have anything to do with my husband's body," said Maria Canizares, 67, whose husband died at the Bay of Pigs. "His desire was to free Cuba and that's where he wanted to die."

The relatives all stated the remains should be untouched while Castro was in power. "When Castro is gone and Cuba is free we will have proper funerals and we will do monuments all over the island," said Laura Vianello, whose uncle died when his plane crashed in the bay. "Until then we don't want reconciliation."

In an interview with Cabello and three other BOP-MIA members, the group rejected the accusations that have been thrown at them. All four proudly showed their Bay of Pigs rings.

They said it was never their intention to impose a solution on the relatives. Instead, they say their plan is to respect the wishes of each family.

Even if the project ultimately fails, Cabello and the others said they remain committed to the path of dialogue. They cited several achievements at last year's Bay of Pigs conference in Havana.

Castro instructed participants not to call their Cuban-American guests "mercenaries," the traditional phrase used to describe the exiles who fought at the Bay of Pigs. Instead they were referred to as "brigade members" or "expeditionaries."

Cuba also apologized for the death of the nine prisoners who died while being transported to Havana.

"The barriers came down and we were able to discuss issues as human beings even though we were mortal enemies at one time," said Cabello. "It's proof to me that meaningful dialogue can work."

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