The Mexican government promised an ``exhaustive inspection'' of a Cuban-owned freighter that drew machine-gun and cannon fire from a Coast Guard cutter after refusing to stop for a drug inspection. The 250-foot Panama-registered freighter, the Hermann, took several hits from the cutter Chincoteague as the vessels steamed across the open Gulf of Mexico, Coast Guard spokesman Joe Gibson said. The ship was hit 50 times by Coast Guard fire, but there were no injuries, a Mexican official said. The vessel escaped into Mexican waters, but two Mexican navy ships seized the Hermann and escorted it to Tampico, about 300 miles south of the U.S. border. ``The situation is not over. There's action still being taken,'' Coast Guard Lt. Steve Koska said late Wednesday. ``I can't go into it, but there are things we can do. We can go through diplomatic channels.'' Mexico's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that authorities began the ``exhaustive search'' of the vessel in Tampico. The inspection, expected to take at least 24 hours, was to include a search for drugs and an examination of the ship's navigation diary, said Javier Trevino, a spokesman with Mexico's embassy in Washington, D.C. The Cuban government, which had demanded that the United States not attempt to board the ship, has made a formal complaint to the State Department over the incident, said a Cuban diplomatic representative in Washington. The official called the incident a provocation. ``This deed demonstrates once more that the United States intends to behave as owner of the world and with its proverbial barbarism appears willing to obstruct normal commerce between Cuba and Mexico,'' said an official quoted by Cuba's official news agency, Prensa Latina. Secretary of State James A. Baker III disagreed. ``It was not an attack and a provocation,'' Baker said. ``We were engaged in a legal law enforcement activity.'' State, Defense Department and National Security Council officials held three meetings before giving permission to use disabling fire against the Hermann, said Jack O'Dell, a Coast Guard spokesman in Washington. The Coast Guard obtained permission from Panama to fire on the ship, Gibson said. He said it is protocol to request permission to stop a vessel from its country of registry. The Hermann has a Cuban crew, is owned by a Cuban company and originated from a Cuban port, Coast Guard officials said. Koska said the decision to board the ship was made because the vessel fit the profile of a narcotics-smuggling ship, but he declined to elaborate. ``The profile of a vessel that is engaged in illegal activity is when you ask them to stop and they don't stop,'' he said. ``Wouldn't you say that's a pretty good indication?'' Cuba's news agency, monitored in Mexico City, said the ship had a 12-man crew, a cargo of 10 tons of chromium and was operated by the Guamar Shipping Co. of Cuba. The incident lasted from early Tuesday, when the Chincoteague spotted the freighter, until 5 a.m. Wednesday, when the shots were fired about 45 miles east of Tampico. The Coast Guard cutter, a 110-foot patrol boat with a crew of 16, is based in Mobile, Ala. It has two M-60 machine guns and one 20mm cannon.
