Ly Tong

January 2, 2000
Web posted at: 12:34 a.m. EST (0534 GMT)

From Correspondent Susan Candiotti

MIAMI (CNN) -- A New Orleans man was in federal custody Sunday after buzzing the Cuban capital Havana with a rented plane, dropping leaflets urging an uprising against communist leader Fidel Castro.

Ly Tong was arrested upon his return to the Miami area Saturday. His plane was surrounded by U.S. Customs agents as it touched down at a Miami-area airport about 10:30 a.m. Saturday.

Tong, 51, is a U.S. citizen who emigrated from Vietnam in 1984. He rented a plane from Tamiami Airport in Dade County, Florida, on Friday; spent the night in Key West; then flew to Cuba shortly after 6 a.m. Saturday, U.S. Customs spokesman Michael Sheehan said.

A U.S. Customs radar center in Long Beach, California tracked the small plane as it flew from Florida to Cuba. So did Cuban authorities, who sent two Soviet-built MiG fighters to monitor the plane.

The Cubans took no action, but contacted the Federal Aviation Administration, Sheehan said. U.S. officials shadowed Tong's flight as well, tracking him with a Customs and a Blackhawk helicopter.

The typewritten orange, red and pink leaflets dropped from the plane were in Spanish and English, and contained phrases that in effect said "Castro should be overthrown, communism is wrong," Sheehan said.

The pamphlets were signed: "Commander in Chief of the Revolutionary Anti-Communist Forces of the World," followed by an illegible signature.

Sheehan said Tong, who described himself as a "freedom fighter," voluntarily surrendered his pilot's license.

His flight came nearly four years after Cuba shot down four Florida-based exiles in international airspace after they flew over Cuba. The men were members of the anti-Castro group Brothers to the Rescue.

That group's spokesman, Jose Basulto, said Tong is not associated with his group. But Basulto said Tong "sounds like a legitimate anti-Communist to me."

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