CUBA: Gov’t Invites Exile Community to New Talks

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Oct 22 2002 (IPS) - A new meeting with Cuban emigrés convened by the government of Fidel Castro for April will give representatives of the Cuban exile community an opportunity to express their interest in easier access to and from this socialist Caribbean island nation.

”Most Cubans abroad want changes in Cuba’s migration policy, although it must be recognised that the norms today are more flexible than they were 10 years ago,” an expert who preferred not to be identified told IPS.

A conference on ”the Nation and Emigration”, to be held in Cuba, will follow up on similar talks held in 1994 and 1995, according to the notice for the meeting, which was published Tuesday by Granma, the newspaper of the ruling Communist Party.

The two previous conferences, held at the peak of the worst economic crisis suffered by socialist Cuba, which was triggered by the break-up of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of the east European socialist bloc, led to reforms in Cuba’s migration policy.

Since then, Cubans in the United States who have legally emigrated can obtain a special permit, valid for two years, which allows them to go in and out of Cuba as many times as they want without the need of a visa. The permit can also be renewed.

”Last year, three times more Cubans living abroad travelled to this country than in 1994…and since that year, there have been more than 600,000 visits to Cuba by emigrants,” the government reported in its announcement of the April conference.

Of the roughly 1.2 million Cubans and their descendants living in the United States, nearly one million were born in Cuba, according to U.S. government sources.

Another 130,000 live in Latin America, 37,000 in Europe, and more than 1,000 ”in the rest of the world,” according to estimates by the University of Havana Centre of Studies on International Migration.

Apart from the United States, the biggest Cuban exile communities are found in Spain, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Mexico. There are also significant Cuban communities in other countries of Central and South America, as well as in the former east European socialist bloc, especially Russia.

Emigrés living in any country can take part in the conference, although the government sent out a special call to those residing in the United States.

According to Granma, Cubans in the United States are victims of ”the hostile U.S. policy that for decades has stood in the way of normal ties between that community and their families in Cuba.”

More than 200 emigrés took part in the 1994 meeting, and 330 in the following year’s talks. And ”we expect attendance at this conference to be even higher,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Aymée Hernández.

Invitations will be sent out by the conference organising committee, which will select the participants from the list of those who send in their applications to the nearest Cuban consulate or interests section.

Hernández said Cuban officials are currently involved in a ”consultation process” with emigrants to decide on the conference agenda, on which she declined to provide details.

The notice of the conference states that it will provide ”an opportunity for fomenting broad, direct discussions between emigrants and Cuban authorities,” and for ”identifying new steps to be taken in the search for increasingly normal and smooth relations between emigrants and this country.”

The Castro administration says the four-decade-old U.S. embargo against Cuba stands in the way of the right of Cubans living in the United States to maintain ties with their country of origin.

It also accuses hard-line anti-Castro Cuban exile groups of advocating ”a stiffening of the blockade, and even armed aggression.”

According to analysts, the Cuban government apparently believes that closer ties with non-hostile groups of Cuban emigrants will help isolate those who support the embargo.

”Our position in the future will be to consider it a right of Cubans who live abroad to maintain ties with their country, and with their families,” Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque told a U.S. radio station last month.

Migration regulations – which were adopted in the first place ”out of the need to confront aggression against Cuba” – will become ”more flexible,” said the minister.

”We believe that in our country there are important channels for contact, dialogue and participation for Cubans, wherever they may be in the world,” said Pérez Roque.

Gaining permission to travel abroad for personal reasons is an odyssey for Cubans, due to the extensive and costly red tape involved in the process. And Cubans living overseas must overcome many obstacles when they wish to visit the island.