Pursued by Coast Guard, Cuban boy dies in open sea: paradox?

The Cuban honcho below is obviously being as hypocritical as he can. But still it does strike one as kind of odd. The US government maintains (rightly, IMO) that the Cuban regime constitutes a cruel, oppressive, dehumanising totalitarian state. But it will at the same time chase after anyone who actually tries to escape from that regime, onto their death - at least as long as they're not on land yet. Isnt that kind of cruelly/hypocritically paradoxical?