CUBA-UNITED STATES: Immigration Accords Strong Despite Helms- Burton

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Sep 20 1996 (IPS) - In spite of tension created by the Helms- Burton law, diplomatic rows and unresolved cases of aspiring emigrants, Cuba and the United States continue to respect the immigration accords reached last year.

‘Granma’, the official publication of the governing Communist Party, reported Friday that the May 2, 1995 accords which are intended to put an end to undocumented emigration from Cuba to the United States are being followed “due to the continued interest of both countries.”

Six Cubans were picked up at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard and returned to their country on Thursday.

Meanwhile, a communique released by the Office of Cuban Interests in Washington, D.C., which states that the government of the Caribbean island nation is willing to normalise its relations with the United States, was published in Havana this week.

“It is the U.S. government that has refused and does not want normal relations, with its outdated blockade and policy of aggression,” the document states.

Recent events that led to a further deterioration of the relations between the two countries included the non-renovation of the visa of a U.S. diplomat in Havana, a similar response by the United States against a representative of Cuba, and a customs search of Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bruno Rodriguez.

Nevertheless, both nations continued to respect the immigration agreements, and 418 undocumented Cubans have been returned by U.S. authorities over the last year.

With the aim of turning Cuban emigration into a legal and regulated process, the U.S. government agreed to repatriate any Cubans who reached U.S. territory without the necessary documents.

Havana in turn agreed to receive them without reprisals. Up to the “crisis of the rafters” – an exodus of thousands of Cubans on rickety boats and rafts in August 1994 – unauthorised emigration was considered a crime.

The Granma report added that the accords continued to be respected “in spite of manipulative campaigns from Miami that attempted to encourage another big exodus, especially this summer.”

According to local authorities, the “enemy hand” of the radical wing of the Cuban exile community in the United States was behind rumours spread in Cuba that the government might once again allow emigration in reprisal against the Helms-Burton law.

Experts at the Centre for U.S. Studies in Havana said the accords continued to be respected thanks only to President Bill Clinton’s anti-immigration policy, following the Feb. 21 shooting down by the Cuban air force of two small airplanes flown by a Miami-based group of Cubans.

That incident nipped in the bud an incipient relaxation of tension between the two countries, and led to the speedy approval of the Helms-Burton law, intended to stiffen the 34-year-old embargo against Cuba.

The accords seemed to be walking a tightrope once again in July, when the White House announced it was studying the possibility of granting political asylum to former lieutenant- colonel Jose Fernandez Pupo, who hijacked a Cuban airplane in an attempt to defect to the United States.

Fernandez Pupo is still at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba awaiting the decision that will determine whether he is to be given asylum, turned over to U.S. courts or repatriated.

Ricardo Alarcon, the president of the Cuban parliament and the government’s representative at the signing of the accords last year, said compliance with the agreements would mean Fernandez Pupo’s return to Cuba.

Sources at the Foreign Ministry said that if the case was not used to set an example, “Cuba would think the United States is encouraging illegal emigration.”

The situation was further complicated by the pending cases of three Cubans who hijacked a small airplane and flew to the United States.

And to the chagrin of Cuban authorities – according to the Foreign Ministry – the United States decided to repatriate only 16 of 27 survivors of an Aug. 12 shipwreck off the coasts of Florida.

At the time, a Foreign Ministry statement called the U.S. acceptance of undocumented Cubans “a flagrant violation of the immigration accords.”

Granma, on the other hand, called the return of the 16 emigrants “another ratification” of the political will of the two countries to fulfill their commitments. The report did not refer to the unresolved cases.