Saturday, April 27, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
THE TALES from the survivors sometimes are hideously grotesque. Dead bodies in the water ... suffering ... agonizing hours on the open seas. Those who've made the decision to raft their way to the United States from Cuba depart with only one certainty, that their peril-filled voyage requires incredible courage.
They've been coming now for at least four decades. And, more and more, those reaching the United States by rowing across the Straits of Florida are professional-caliber athletes.
For the more fortunate who wish to seek asylum, there are opportunities to slip away from traveling Cuban National teams. One Cuban expatriate, boxing manager Luis DeCubas, said he anticipates widespread desertion by Cuban athletes who will be attending the Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
"There will definitely be a lot more athletes coming," he said last week during a visit to Las Vegas, where two of his stable of Cuban-born fighters were contestants on a pro boxing card at the Aladdin. "Don't be surprised to see a lot of Cuban Olympic athletes staying here after the Games are over."
DeCubas, 39, wasn't yet 10 years old when his father, a doctor, was able to get his family on a plane out of Cuba in 1966. They settled in Minnesota.
Today, DeCubas lives in Florida and handles seven fighters, six of whom rafted to freedom within the past two years. Two of those fighters, Ramon LeDon and Rene Valdez, each 29 years old, were on the Aladdin card.
"I'd say 50 percent of the people who have tried to make it (from Cuba to Florida on a raft) have failed," DeCubas said. "The ones who do make it have the most terrifying stories you've ever heard.
"Imagine: You're out there on a homemade raft trying to get across 90 miles of water. The sharks are constantly surrounding you. You'll see bodies, parts of bodies. The sun is another killer. And you'll almost certainly run out of food before you make it."
Perhaps it's no surprise then that the Cuban athletes who have made that trip become hard-working, no-nonsense professional athletes in the United States. The most recent additions to DeCubas' stable -- Ramon LeDon (275-19 as an amateur in Cuba); Ivan LeDon (Ramon's 23-year-old nephew); 25-year-old Eliser Castillo; and Valdez -- are undefeated in 14 pro fights and showing championship potential.
"One thing about the Cubans, they know they have to be successful because there's nowhere else for them to go," DeCubas said. "If an athlete comes to the United States from Brazil or Panama or almost anywhere else in the world, he can always go back home if it doesn't work out. But the Cubans can't go back to Cuba. So the hunger factor and their desire is absolutely unbelievable."
More and more Cuban athletes are making an impact in the States. Aside from the seven fighters, baseball players Ariel Prieto (Oakland Athletics) and Rey Ordonez (New York Mets) are playing at the major-league level now. Another player, 21-year-old pitcher Livan Hernandez, is in the Florida Marlins' minor-league system and is said to be a phenomenal talent. He bolted the Cuban National baseball team last September in Mexico, signing immediately with the Marlins for $4.5 million. (His salary with the Cuban team was $5 per month.)
Two other Cubans, Orestes Destrade and Rene Arocha, were in the majors as recently as a year ago. Destrade was at the tail end of his career; Arocha is currently injured.
"In Cuba, boys either box or play baseball," DeCubas said. "American kids grow up playing all sports, but in Cuba it's boxing or baseball because they require the least amount of equipment."
Money is at an absolute premium in Cuba, a country of 44,218 square miles that has been controlled by an extreme leftist, Fidel Castro, since he became prime minister in 1959. Castro will be 70 this year but apparently he isn't mellowing.
"I'd like to go back and see Cuba, but I'm not going to take the chance that Castro will wake up the morning I'm there and do something crazy," DeCubas said. "It wouldn't be safe. My family is a traitor to the revolution."
Like his father in '66, DeCubas said those leaving Cuba today are desperate for a better life.
"When you have no freedom, you're willing to take risks," DeCubas said. "Your choice is to live like a robot or find a way out. It's scary, but that's the way it is."
Staying means a life of poverty and intense scrutiny. Lands, banks and farms are all nationalized; every part of the country and every block in the city has a designated "surveillance house" where the occupant reports to a central office about everything that happens in his or her neighborhood.
"You live poor, off of coupons you get from the government every month," DeCubas said. "The day you get your coupons, you go out and trade them in for food or whatever you absolutely have to have. You get to the end of the month, you have nothing. You have no meat, no rice. You're down to eating soap."
The situation has worsened somewhat in recent months with the U.S. government intercepting rafters (and sending them to a naval base), plus clamping down on money sent to Cubans from relatives in the States.
"The rules have changed," DeCubas said. "The U.S. has tightened the screws on Castro. Now you can't send dollars to Cuba. What that means is that Cubans will take more risks than ever in the next six months."
And more athletes will be among the risk-takers.
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