Twenty years ago today
The Stars & Stripes wrote an article three years ago about the confrontation between US troops and the Cuban refugees they were supposed to be protecting. Bill Clinton was president and he remembered how Cuban refugees had sunk his reelection for the governorship of Arkansas after the Mariel Boatlift between April 15 and October 31, 1980. So when another huge exodus from Cuba began in 1994, Clinton tried to hide the problem by sending refugees to Guantanmo. When the camps filled up there, he shipped them to the Canal Zone and the US built detention camps there on the Army’s “Empire Range” – the large training area. he put inexperienced infantrymen in charge of managing the burgeoning camps.
The Cubans became impatient at being detained in the camps while the wheels of the immigration bureaucracy ground slowly and they rioted on occasion, burning tents and stealing soldiers’ military vehicles. Of course, the soldiers were unarmed except for riot batons;
Inside the camp, the Cubans tied the gates shut and pushed bleachers from the soccer field against the fence.
“Finally we got the word,” Epley said.
He and two other soldiers went to work on the gate. By now the Cubans were hurling the drainage rocks at the U.S. troops. A few rocks broke through the fence. One of them hit a soldier in the face.
“He got nailed,” Epley recalled. “Broke his jaw.”
They got the gate open slightly, and Epley raced through. He charged at a group of rioters, screaming, with his baton in the air. The sight of the crazed American soldier sent them scurrying.
“Move out!” Amerine yelled.
The Cubans retreated around the corner of the dining facility. Marching three abreast with their riot shields up, as if in a parade, Amerine’s 1st Platoon walked along the back of the dining facility.
As they turned the corner and faced the soccer field, they finally saw what they were facing: hundreds and hundreds of angry rioters.
“The sky filled with a dark cloud of stones,” Amerine wrote later.
Another soldier, Spc. Robert Young, wasn’t far behind. He’d been in the Persian Gulf War and was one of the few combat veterans in the company.
He’d never seen anything like this.
“The sun is gone,” Young recalled. “Thousands and thousands of rocks.”
But you should go read the rest of the story and about the bravery of the Americans when confronted with a situation they had never faced before. I noticed that Mogadishu hadn’t influenced the folks in leadership positions to give the troops the tools that they said they needed that day in Panama to protect themselves – you know stuff like riot shotguns. There was very little about it in the news when it happened and there will be even less about it on the twentieth anniversary today. But it’s worth remembering with the growing numbers of illegal immigrants currently being rounded up and put in refugee camps these days.
Category: Illegal Immigrants, Politics
Fun fun
History forgets the Rangers that were attending J.O.T.C went in around midnight and subdued and secured that camp. AKA curb stomp and zip tie. Their is some nice video footage of the riot. That same day our Pagers were going off for task force 2/505 at fort Bragg and we went to Panama. We arrived and found the Navy And Air force were still running the seven camps like a girl scout camp WTF. We built our own camp in an old impact area lots of fun things were found. The brass did not want the 82nd Airborne going down town. Something about bad feeling from operation Just Cause. But most of us agreed it was better than being at Bragg picking up cigarette butts.
P.S some of the Cuban women were efn hot!
imo
Interesting read. It was akin to ancient battle, with a clash between groups using fits and wielding sticks, rocks, and shields. In the late 50s/ early 60s this was called a rumble.
Nothing a little CS wouldn’t have fixed.
Gotta good story about a rumble and an M11 filled with CS powder…
Our NBC guys had there old m11s ready to for our QRF mission down their. One night an m11 blew a gasket literally. Every one down wind in our base got around midnight. On the better side the morning we packed up and left the NBC guys fired em all off into the jungle. That was incredible all the wildlife in the jungle going nuts.
CS is good stuff. In the hands of a skilled NBC NCO, the phrase “one riot, one Texas Ranger” comes to mind.
I always preferred the powder to the grenades. More flexibility in how I could employ it, if ya catch my drift…
The coatimundis did not like c.s powder ether. Lots of fun.
Interesting, this is the first I’ve heard of this. At the time this was happening I was on the other side of the Caribbean in Haiti for OUD but you would have thought it would have at least warranted a mention in the daily INTSUM (which it did not, as far as I remember.)
That’s where I was when this happened. Never heard a peep about it in Haiti. First I’ve heard of this.
A lot of our guys had worked at the camps in Guantanamo just prior to leaving OUD.
The soldiers’ reaction to the rock throwing is interesting; people don’t realize how deadly rocks can be, despite the story of David and Goliath. The US Border Patrol has my sympathy, and their critics have my contempt, when they respond with deadly force to rock throwers from Mexico.