HAVANA -- Relatives and friends of four Miami aviators killed one year ago marked the anniversary Monday with barely noticed ceremonies, fearing government reprisals even as most Cubans appeared unaware of the day's significance.
A Cuban navy warship took about 30 local and foreign journalists out to the edge of territorial waters, 12 miles from the coast, to watch a fleet of Miami-based airplanes drop a wreath 10 miles farther north.
At two Havana churches, priests celebrating Mass included the names of the four Brothers to the Rescue fliers in the list of dead remembered in prayers but made no special mention of the incident.
Priests at some of the other churches where dissidents had announced ceremonies for the Miami aviators killed last Feb. 24 by a Cuban MiG even went out of their way to keep their distance, at least in public, from the event.
``I will not permit any provocation in the church, any manipulation of the church,'' said one priest.
Friends of one of the Brothers to the Rescue victims said there was a plan to throw flowers into the sea from the shoreline Malecon Boulevard, but to act individually and avoid gathering at specific places or times to avert a crackdown by security forces.
But the Malecon appeared normal Monday afternoon, and most Cubans appeared largely unaware of the anniversary and uninterested in its significance.
``We don't have time for that,'' said one woman who gave only her first name, Nancy. ``The people are not interested. We have to solve daily problems -- food, gas, medicine.''
Cuba's media had made no mention of the anniversary until Monday's newspaper Trabajadores carried a column by National Assembly lawmaker Lazaro Barredo arguing that the Clinton administration could have prevented the incident by grounding the Brothers fliers.
Barredo said that since 1994, Cuba had complained to Washington 24 times about Brothers to the Rescue's violation of Cuban airspace, and that after alleged overflights of Havana on Jan. 9 and 13 of 1996, the government stepped up its warnings.
Cuba maintains the shootdowns occurred inside Cuban airspace. The United Nations' civil aviation arm sided with U.S. evidence that they took place in international airspace, that the MiG never warned the planes and that it was illegal in any case to down civilian aircraft.
Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald