Hunger strike ended

Ramon Saul Sanchez took a promise from the White House as good currency to put an en to his hunger strike over the unjust kidnapping from American soil, and forced repatriation of a group of 15 Cuban refugees that made it to the Old Seven Mile Bridge in South Florida.
Apparently, an official note from the White House is on its way to the Democracia Movement headquarters in Miami, but phone calls to the White House (made by A.P. journos) have not been answered, as well as my own call to Mr. Sanchez's organization.
All the Cuba-themed bloggers in the blogroll have different angles and aspects of this story, and we're all waiting for more developments, such as the contents of the note, any conditions to be negotiated, and who are going to be in charge to discuss this matter from both camps.
Needless to say, we at KillCastro think that the dry-foot wet-foot executive order has to be rescinded immediately, and that any other action that doesn't do away with it can never and will never be accepted as a just solution to the problem of the Cuban refugees.

UPDATE from Channel 10 Local News, Miami

POSTED: 12:24 pm EST January 18, 2006

MIAMI -- A Cuban exile activist said Wednesday that he is ending his 12-day hunger strike now that it appears President George W. Bush's administration would discuss its "wet foot, dry foot" immigration policy.Ramon Saul Sanchez, leader of Movimiento Democracia, a Cuban advocacy group, began the hunger strike Jan. 7 in protest of the U.S. government's treatment of 15 Cubans who were sent back to the communist island after they landed on the old Seven Mile Bridge's piling in the Florida Keys.Sanchez said representatives of Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, and U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, told him that he would receive official word from the White House later Wednesday."Because the president of the United States is sensitive enough to listen to us, I am at this time stopping my hunger strike," a gaunt and unshaven Sanchez told supporters as an ambulance waited to take him to Jackson Memorial Hospital.Gov. Bush said Tuesday a delegation led by Bishop Augustine Roman would meet in Washington to discuss the "wet foot, dry foot" policy with a congressional delegation.Sanchez lay Wednesday in a makeshift tent on Calle Ocho, the main street through Miami's Little Havana, his legs covered in a gray plaid blanket with photos of Pope John Paul II and the Cuban flag hanging behind him. Supporters and families of the Cubans who were repatriated last week surrounded him.The case that Sanchez was protesting drew national attention after the U.S. Coast Guard decided that a bridge piling those 15 Cuban migrants landed on did not constitute dry land.The Coast Guard rescued the Cubans Jan. 4 from the piling that holds up a section of the old Seven Mile Bridge. They had rafted their way from Cuba.Under the "wet foot, dry foot" policy, Cubans who reach U.S. soil are generally allowed to stay, while those intercepted at sea are generally repatriated.But the part of the old bridge piling that the Cubans touched is no longer connected to land -- a gray area in the law that Sanchez and his supporters believe is unfair.Sanchez said he's not asking that the U.S. open its borders completely."If that happens, everyone would leave and Cuba would fall apart," he said.Instead, Sanchez said he wants a policy that insures migrants have access to attorneys and alert families of migrants when they have been detained."Right now, you have a lot of families suffering because they don't know what happened to their loved ones when the Coast Guard stops them," he said.Members of the delegation are expected to discuss those issues when the meeting takes place. No time or date has been set."God has heard our prayers," Sanchez said.