Fort Chaffee crisis

Last updated
Fort Chaffee crisis
Part of the Mariel boatlift
DateMay - June, 1980
Location
Caused byProcessing problems for Cuban refugees and local anger at Cubans in the area.
Parties
Ku Klux Klan and vigilantes
Cuban refugees
Lead figures

The Fort Chaffee crisis occurred during the Mariel boatlift in 1980 when over 19,000 Cuban refugees were detained at Fort Chaffee. They could not be released into the public because they were not United States citizens. After a promise of quick release many processing setbacks occurred and many refugees remained still detained at the center. Frustrated with the conditions at the facility and the slow processing many refugees rioted, 62 refugees were injured (some by gunfire) and 46 others were arrested. Refugees at the center would go on to refer to the riot as El Domingo. After the riots Governor Bill Clinton put heavy fortifications at the center. Clinton would lose the later Arkansas election after his opponent would use the incident against him. [1]

Contents

Background

Refugees enter Fort Chaffee

President Jimmy Carter had recently accepted Cuban refugees from the Mariel boatlift to enter the United States. The Fort Chaffee Maneuver Training Center had previously been used as a detention center for Vietnamese refugees and Carter negotiated with Arkansas governor Bill Clinton for the use of the center to process Cuban refugees. At first Clinton feared the plan, and instead requested that they be processed on an aircraft carrier. He would also argue "We still have a base at Guantanamo, don't we? And there must be a gate in the fence that divides it from Cuba. Take them to Guantanamo, open the door, and march them back into Cuba." President Carter would still order the use of the base and Cuban refugees began to be transported to the center. [2]

In May 1980 around 19,000 Cuban refugees from the Mariel boatlift were airlifted to the Fort Chaffee Maneuver Training Center for immigration processing. The first 128 Cubans brought to the base by plane were met by a trespassing klansman on the tarmac who warned officials to not let them in, claiming they were criminals. [3] By May 20 around 20,000 Cubans were being held at the base. [2]

Complications in processing

Despite wishes to gain freedom in America, many of the refugees were held for months at the base. Refugees were not allowed to leave the base unless they had a sponsor; it became incredibly hard for refugees to find sponsors due to the branding of Mariel refugees as criminals. Locals and members of the Ku Klux Klan also demonstrated against the Cuban refugees outside of the base, angering the refugees inside. [4]

Conflict

Escape and standoff

On May 26 hundreds of refugees escaped the base through an unguarded gate. The refugees couldn't be captured since they were technically not illegal aliens. Clinton would later recall "I was afraid people in the area were going to start shooting them. There had been a run on handguns and rifles in every gun store within fifty miles of Chaffee." [2] As the group of refugees walked to Barling armed citizens, some on horseback, faced down the escapees to stop their movement. The police intervened to stop violence and asked for a Spanish speaking interpreter. Eduardo Gamarra a Bolivian born refugee re-locator official was brought in to interpret. Gamarra pleaded the refugees sit down to talk, warning the residents might open fire. The refugees talked of their frustrations in not finding sponsors so they could leave the base and Gamarra reassured them he would help to find sponsors, the refugees decided to return to the base. As the refugees returned to the base's fence the angered citizens charged the refugees pushing some over the fence and forcing them back into the base. [3]

Later that night Ku Klux Klan members carrying torches marched by the base with signs saying "Kill the Communist Criminals" while local armed vigilantes circled the base with pickup trucks. [5] Gamarra would recall that later that night the local news would refer to the standoff as a sit-in protest staged by the refugees. [3]

Riots

June 1

On June 1 a group of refugees began marching and chanting "Libertad!" and walked out of the center. When state police began to beat the escapees the refugees began to hurl rocks at them. [3] After police were pinned behind trucks the police began to open fire with pistols and shotguns at the escapees. The escapees were forced back into the base and were then tear gassed and clubbed by federal police and soldiers. Bands of refugees began roaming around the base starting fires, various barracks were burned. Some Cubans helped authorities put out fires and calm rioters. Many rioters were later arrested, and many civilians were evacuated from the base. [6]

June 2

On June 2 a group of refugees began chanting "Libertad" and marching towards the gate. A conflict arose between the marchers and a television crew and the crew had to flee to a nearby building. As the marchers began climbing the base fences, state troopers and deputies from Fort Smith and Sebastian county began to corral marchers back into the base and began firing warning shots. The marchers retreated back inside the base and began hurling rocks at law enforcement. Police officers began clubbing a refugee who escaped the conflict and was running from the base. In the town of Barling soldiers and police were holding back armed locals who demanded to battle the Cuban rioters, 6 locals would be arrested for disorderly conduct. [6]

Aftermath

The conflict left one Cuban dead, 40 injured, 84 jailed, while 1 civilian and 15 state troopers were also injured. [5]

Political losses

Political challenger of Bill Clinton for the governorship Frank White, used the crisis against Clinton in his campaign and would eventually win the election. [7]

Immigration fears

After the May 26th standoff People magazine quoted an INS officer claiming that, "85 percent of the refugees are convicts, robbers, murderers, homosexuals, and prostitutes." This figure was a gross overestimate, but stoked popular fears. Former Carter administration official Gene Eidenberg stated on the media's role in the incident: "I was in Chicago in 1968. What happened at Ft. Chaffee was a disturbance but it became a riot in the public mind. The national media defined the character of 127,000 Cubans… people wandered off the base on a hot summer night to stretch their legs, they were scared, nervous, bored, but not about to take on the U.S. Army." Mayor Jack Freeze of neighboring community Fort Smith noted of the incident "People here decided they didn't want the Cubans before they saw them. The press had already said they were bad. I knew they couldn't be productive. There might be a Desi Arnaz or two out there, but mostly they were going to be killing one another." [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mariel boatlift</span> Mass migration of Cubans to the US in 1980

The Mariel boatlift was a mass emigration of Cubans who traveled from Cuba's Mariel Harbor to the United States between April 15 and October 31, 1980. The term "Marielito" is used to refer to these refugees in both Spanish and English. While the exodus was triggered by a sharp downturn in the Cuban economy, it followed on the heels of generations of Cubans who had immigrated to the United States in the preceding decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wet feet, dry feet policy</span> US policy on Cuban migrants between 1995 and 2017

The wet feet, dry feet policy or wet foot, dry foot policy was the name given to a former interpretation of the 1995 revision of the application of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 that essentially says that anyone who emigrated from Cuba and entered the United States would be allowed to pursue residency a year later. Prior to 1995, the U.S. government allowed all Cubans who reached U.S. territorial waters to remain in the U.S. After talks with the Cuban government, the Clinton administration came to an agreement with Cuba that it would stop admitting people intercepted in U.S. waters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cuban exodus</span> Defectors from Communist Cuba

The Cuban exodus is the mass emigration of Cubans from the island of Cuba after the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Throughout the exodus, millions of Cubans from diverse social positions within Cuban society emigrated within various emigration waves, due to political repression and disillusionment with life in Cuba.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Chaffee Maneuver Training Center</span> Military installation of the Arkansas Army National Guard

Fort Chaffee Joint Maneuver Training Center, also known as Fort Chaffee, is an Arkansas Army National Guard installation located in western Arkansas, adjacent to the city of Fort Smith. Established as Camp Chaffee in 1941, renamed to Fort Chaffee in 1956, it has served as a U.S. Army base, training camp, prisoner-of-war camp, and refugee camp. The fort was realigned following the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission round. Since that time, the Arkansas National Guard has been using 66,000 acres (270 km2) as a training facility. The State of Arkansas received 6,000 acres (24 km2), about half of which have been redeveloped as of 2014. The main environmental concern has been asbestos, released during various fires.

<i>Garcia-Mir v. Meese</i>

Garcia-Mir v. Meese, 788 F.2d 1446, was a decision by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the United States could indefinitely detain Cuban refugees who had arrived during the 1980 Mariel boatlift.

The Atlanta prison riots were a series of prison riots that occurred at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, United States in November 1987. The riot coincided with a similar riot at the Federal Detention Center in Oakdale, Louisiana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1980 Arkansas gubernatorial election</span> Election in the United States

The 1980 Arkansas gubernatorial election was a biennial election for the governorship of Arkansas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Sea Signal</span>

Operation Sea Signal was a United States Department of Defense operation in the Caribbean in response to an influx of Cuban and Haitian migrants attempting to gain asylum in the United States. As a result, the migrants became refugees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. The operation took place from May 1992 to February 1996 under Joint Task Force 160. The task force processed over 50,000 refugees as part of the operation. The U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy rescued refugees from the sea and other migrants attempted to cross the landmine field that then separated the U.S. and Cuban military areas. Soldiers, Airmen, and Marines provided refugee camp security at Guantanamo Bay, and ship security on board the Coast Guard cutters. This mass exodus led to the U.S. immigration implementation of the Wet Feet Dry Feet Policy. The mass Cuban exodus of 1994 was similar to the Mariel boat lift in 1980.

Clark v. Martinez, 543 U.S. 371 (2005), was a United States Supreme Court case ending the detention of people who had been denied refugee status. They were kept in prison awaiting deportation even though they could not in fact be deported due to a political stalemate with Cuba. An alien can be found inadmissible on the grounds of poor health, criminal history, substance trafficking, prostitution/human trafficking, money laundering, terrorist activity, etc. The deportation process requires a ruling from an immigration judge for violating immigration laws. The case resolved conflicting rulings made by the 9th and 11th circuits on whether Zadvydas v. Davis (2001) was applicable to inadmissible immigrants, Sergio Martinez and Daniel Benitez. The cases of Martinez and Benitez were later consolidated by the Supreme Court.

Victor Andres Triay is a Cuban American historian and writer, known for the books Fleeing Castro: Operation Pedro Pan and the Cuban Children’s Program, Bay of Pigs: An Oral History of Brigade 2506, The Unbroken Circle, and The Mariel Boatlift: A Cuban American Journey.

Marielitos is the name given to the Cuban immigrants that left Cuba from the Port of Mariel in 1980. Approximately 135,000 people left the country to the United States from April to September in what became known as the Mariel boatlift.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adela Vázquez</span> Cuban American transgender activist and performer

Adela Vázquez is a Cuban American transgender activist and performer. Hailing from Cuba during a time of political uprising, Vázquez was one of 125,000 people who sought asylum and migrated in the Mariel Boat lifts in 1980. Local to San Francisco's gay scene, Vázquez began to organize with HIV prevention organization Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida and became a community activist for transgender rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Kozak</span>

Michael G. Kozak is an American diplomat in the United States Department of State who served as Acting Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs from 2019 to 2021. He previously served as U.S. Ambassador to Belarus between 2000 and 2003 and chief of mission at the United States Interests Section in Havana between 1996 and 1999, and was a nominee to be U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador in 1991. He achieved a measure of prominence in the 1980s for his attempts to negotiate with Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega to leave power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1994 Cuban rafter crisis</span> Mass Cuban emigration

The 1994 Cuban rafter crisis which is also known as the 1994 Cuban raft exodus or the Balsero crisis was the emigration of more than 35,069 Cubans to the United States via makeshift rafts. The exodus occurred over five weeks following rioting in Cuba; Fidel Castro announced in response that anyone who wished to leave the country could do so without any hindrance. Fearing a major exodus, the Clinton administration would mandate that all rafters captured at sea be detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

Acts of repudiation is a term Cuban authorities use to refer to acts of violence and or humiliation towards critics of the government. These acts occur when large groups of citizens verbally abuse, intimidate and sometimes physically assault and throw stones and other objects at the homes of Cubans who are considered counter-revolutionaries. Human rights groups suspect that these acts are often carried out in collusion with the security forces and sometimes involve the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution or the Rapid Response Brigades. The amount of violence in these acts has increased significantly since 2003.

"Refugees as weapons" is a term used to describe a hostile government organizing, or threatening to organize, a sudden influx of refugees into another country or political entity with the intent of causing political disturbances in that entity. The responsible country usually seeks to extract concessions from the targeted country and achieve some political, military, and/or economic objective.

In 1978 negotiations known as El Diálogo occurred between Cuban exile groups and the Cuban government that resulted in the release of political prisoners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cuban exile</span> Person who emigrated from Cuba in the Cuban exodus

A Cuban exile is a person who emigrated from Cuba in the Cuban exodus. Exiles have various differing experiences as emigrants depending on when they migrated during the exodus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cuban boat people</span> Refugee migrants from Cuba during the Castro regime.

Cuban boat people mainly refers to refugees who flee Cuba by boat and ship to the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peruvian Havana Embassy Crisis of 1980</span> 1980 diplomatic crisis

On April 1, 1980, six Cuban citizens made their way into the Peruvian embassy in Havana, Cuba, instigating an international crisis over the diplomatic status of around 10,000 asylum-seeking Cubans who joined them over the following days. The Peruvian ambassador, Ernesto Pinto Bazurco Rittler, spearheaded the effort to protect Cubans, most of whom were disapproved of by Fidel Castro’s regime and were seeking protection at the embassy. This episode marked the start of the Cuban refugee crisis, which was followed by a series of diplomatic initiatives between various countries in both North and South America that tried to organize the fleeing of people from the island of Cuba to the United States and elsewhere. The embassy crisis culminated with the substantial exodus of 125,266 Cuban asylum-seekers during the Mariel Boatlift.

References

  1. "1980 – Crisis at Ft. Chaffee". www.arktimes.com. 23 September 2004. Retrieved 2019-07-11.
  2. 1 2 3 "The forgotten story of how refugees almost ended Bill Clinton's career". washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2019-07-11.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Alexander Maxwell Stephens (2016). "I HOPE THEY DON'T COME TO PLAINS": RACE AND THE DETENTION OF MARIEL CUBANS, 1980-1981 (PDF). University of Georgia.
  4. "Two Decades Later, Mariel Boat Lift Refugees Still Feel Effects of Riot". Los Angeles Times . 5 May 2001. Retrieved 2019-07-11.
  5. 1 2 3 Kristina Shull. "Nobody Wants These People": Reagan's Immigration Crisis and the Containment of Foreign Bodies. academia.edu.
  6. 1 2 "Cubans Riot At Center In Arkansas". washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2019-07-11.
  7. "Refugee riot in 1980 gives glimpse of Clinton in crisis". baltimoresun.com. 19 October 1992. Retrieved 2019-07-11.