RIGHTS-CUBA: Castro Grants Dissident Permission to Travel

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Oct 12 2001 (IPS) - Prominent Cuban dissident Elizardo Sánchez received government permission to fly to the Czech Republic on the invitation of President Vaclav Havel, an outspoken critic of the human rights record of the socialist government of Fidel Castro.

Sánchez – who just returned from a visit of several months to Miami, the hub of the Cuban exile community in the United States – will take part in the fifth Forum 2000 conference next Sunday through Wednesday in Prague.

Forum 2000 is an international meeting organised annually by the Czech government since 1997 to discuss the most pressing problems of the 21st century, said Havel in a letter of invitation sent to Sánchez, the president of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN).

Havel pointed out that leading figures like Tibet’s Dalai Lama, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and former US first lady Senator Hillary Clinton have taken part in previous conferences.

The theme of this year’s conference will be “human rights, in search of global responsibility”, and the final declaration will summarise the conclusions from all five of the annual conferences, he added.

The Cuban activist, who left for Prague late Wednesday, did not attend the previous conferences because he failed to obtain authorisation to travel “due to the Cuban government’s refusals or delays,” said CCDHRN spokesman Marcelo López.

López distributed among the foreign press in Cuba copies of Havel’s letter and of a letter Sánchez sent Castro seeking permission to travel, without which no citizen can leave the country.

“I have no alternative but to once again seek your high-level intervention to unblock a temporary permit for travelling abroad, for which I have applied to the relevant authorities, the Interior Ministry’s” immigration service, the activist wrote.

Last May, Sánchez received unusually swift authorisation to travel to Miami when his 17-year-old son Francisco died of cardiac arrest. He stayed in Florida for around three months.

Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque told a news briefing at that time that Sánchez had been granted the visa for humanitarian reasons.

Just a few hours before leaving the country Wednesday, Sánchez expressed in a statement his hope that “the Cuban government will lift the hurdles that deny many Cubans the right to travel overseas freely and return.”

The communique said the cases of other dissidents like Raúl Rivero and Oswaldo Payá, who have been refused visas allowing them to leave the country, made the permits granted to Sánchez “exceptions that confirm an unacceptable rule,” said López.

The CCDHRN is not legally recognised, although it is tolerated despite the biannual reports it produces criticising the human rights situation in Cuba, an especially touchy issue for the Castro government.

Sánchez is one of the main dissidents sought out by personalities visiting Cuba who wish to hear an alternative viewpoint on the situation here.

Sánchez, Payá and other representatives of internal opposition groups met last week with German lawmaker Carl-Dieter Spranger, who spent a few days in Havana on the invitation of the president of the Cuban parliament, Ricardo Alarcón.

The dissidents told the German legislator that the European Union should maintain and reinforce its “common position” on Cuba, as the basis for its relations with this country.

In 1996, the EU adopted a “common position” aimed at pushing Cuba’s socialist regime towards a peaceful transition to a multi- party democracy.

That position has led to Cuba’s exclusion from the benefits of a framework cooperation accord in areas like the sugar industry, fishing, energy, health, science and technology.

Meanwhile, the Czech Republic sponsored once again this year a resolution condemning Havana in the 53-member United Nations Human Rights Commission.

The motion, which according to the Cuban government was approved due to US pressure, passed by a vote of 22 to 20, with 10 abstentions. The Democratic Republic of Congo was absent.

Of the 11 Latin American members of the commission, Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Uruguay voted in favour of the resolution, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru abstained, and Venezuela and Cuba opposed the motion.