CUBA: Dissidents Have Mixed Reactions to Visa Waiver

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Oct 2 2003 (IPS) - The Cuban government’s plans to eliminate its special visa requirement for Cuban citizens living abroad who want to return for a visit have drawn mixed reactions from dissidents in this socialist island nation.

Activists belonging to illegal opposition groups in Cuba say a similar measure should be made available for Cubans wishing to travel abroad.

A statement issued by the Foreign Ministry on Thursday afternoon confirmed that the procedures would be simplified for authorising visits by Cubans living abroad.

”When the decision goes into effect, after the first quarter of 2004, Cubans living abroad who hold a valid Cuban passport will be able to visit Cuba without the need for any previous paperwork,” says the ministry.

The statement clarifies that the measure will only exclude those who engage in ”repugnant or damaging activities against the interests of Cuba.”

The Foreign Ministry added that the aim of the measure is ”to continue facilitating, despite the obstacles of the blockade and the anti-Cuban mafia, contacts between Cubans living abroad and their families in Cuba.”

The communiqué also confirmed that the ”third conference on the nation and emigration” would be held May 27-29, 2004 in Havana.

The meeting, which was initially scheduled for last April, was postponed when a number of dissidents were arrested and handed stiff prison sentences, and three Cubans were executed for hijacking a ferry in an attempt to illegally leave the island for the United States.

Although many Cubans were already aware of the visa news as a result of phone calls from their family members abroad, it was not officially confirmed in Cuba until Thursday.

”Relatives called my wife from Miami and everyone was really happy,” said Matías Menéndez, a self-employed worker.

The measure, first announced in New York on Sep. 27 by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque, will benefit tens of thousands of Cuban citizens, most of whom live in the United States, who under current rules must apply for a special visa to visit their families in Cuba.

”It is a positive decision that resolves one of the two aspects that have to do with national reconciliation, like free travel for Cubans abroad who wish to visit,” said Dimas Castellanos with the Democratic Socialist Current, a dissident group.

But, he added, ”those of us who live here should also be able to travel without restrictions.”

Cuba’s socialist government requires local residents to apply for a ”departure permit” or exit visa, and to present a letter of invitation from the country to which they wish to travel, in order to attain permission to travel overseas.

Vladimiro Roca, with the dissident coalition Todos Unidos (All United), said the measure was aimed at ”boosting the influx of dollars and transmitting a false image of openness, because anyone on the government’s blacklist will simply be denied a passport.”

”What would be positive would be an announcement that restrictions on travelling had been lifted for everyone, and that the political prisoners were being freed,” added Roca, who complained that the government had refused him departure permits three times, after he had received specific invitations to travel.

But Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, a former guerrilla commander who fought alongside Fidel Castro in the 1959 revolution, said he is "very pleased" by the news.

Gutiérrez Menoyo, head of Cuban Change, a moderate opposition group founded while he lived in exile in the United States, said the waiver of the visa requirement was a ”step forward,” but that the restrictions for Cubans wishing to travel abroad should also be lifted.

”Cubans should have the right to freely enter and leave the country,” he said.

On Aug. 7, the activist told his family at the last minute that he was not returning to the United States with them, after a three-week vacation in Havana. Since then he has been waiting for a response from local authorities to his request to be allowed to live in Cuba once again.

He said his oldest daughter, Patricia, met with Pérez Roque during the foreign minister’s meeting Saturday in New York with 265 Cubans living in 23 U.S. states.

”He was very courteous and friendly, and my daughter gave him a letter for President Fidel Castro, asking for a solution to my situation,” said Gutiérrez Menoyo, who went into exile in 1989, after spending 22 years in prison for an attempted armed uprising against Castro.

Sources consulted by IPS estimated the number of Cubans living abroad at 1.4 to 1.5 million. In the United States, a total of 1,241,685 Cubans were registered in the 2000 census.

Of that total, around one million were born in Cuba, and nearly 60 percent live in the state of Florida, mainly in Dade County, where Miami is located.

Official figures and the University of Havana’s Centre of Studies on International Migration indicate that 130,000 Cubans live in the rest of Latin America, 37,000 in Europe, and over 1,000 in the other parts of the world. The population of Cuba is estimated at 11.2 million.

After the United States, the biggest Cuban exile communities are found in Spain, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Mexico. There are also significant communities in Costa Rica and other countries of Central America, South America, Russia and East European countries that once formed part of the East European socialist bloc.

Academics say that Cuba’s condition as a country of emigration entails important challenges for this century, at the individual, social and national levels, but it is unlikely that restrictions on travel will change, at least not in the short term.

Castro himself cut short any hope of that last Sunday. In his closing ceremony address to the congress of the Committees for Defence of the Revolution, he described the measures designed to curb ”brain drain” – the emigration of professionals – as ”logical and extremely fair.”

”We are not interested in calmly allowing them to steal our health professionals,” said Castro, justifying the Cuban laws that the United States considers a violation of the bilateral migration accords signed in 1994 and 1995.