SPAIN: Cubans in Search of a Second Miami

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Jan 3 2002 (IPS) - The number of Cubans defecting to Spain during stopovers of flights heading to Moscow has risen in the past few months, pointing to a search for “a second Miami,” or a place where they have a chance of working and sending remittances back to their families in Cuba.

Spain’s laws make a distinction between those seeking political asylum and humanitarian refugees from nations in a situation of economic emergency, where they are unable to find work or support to meet their basic needs for survival.

In order to work and become a legal resident in Spain, foreign nationals must come equipped with a visa, for which they must first present a job contract in the Spanish consulate in their home country.

But many Cubans have gotten around that obstacle by boarding a plane to Moscow in Havana, and requesting political asylum in Madrid during a stopover to refuel or pick up and drop off passengers.

The asylum-seekers are interrogated by the Spanish police, with legal advice from on-duty members of the bar association and support from the Madrid-based Cuban Centre, headed by María Comella and Antonio Peláez.

“Just one to two percent of them are political exiles, and gain recognition of the rights that go along with that status,” Comella told IPS. “The rest are humanitarian refugees, none of whom have been rejected by the Spanish authorities.”

The inflow of refugees to the Barajas international airport in Madrid rose threefold this year, with a total of 496 applications for asylum or refuge in December. On Wednesday alone, 150 refugees requested asylum, 90 percent of whom were Cubans, according to the secretary-general of the Spanish Committee of Aid to Refugees (CEAR), Enrique de Santiago.

Nearly all of the Cubans defecting to Spain are under 40, which means they were born before the socialist government of Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba, in 1959.

“They come to Spain not knowing anything about life here. They come to seek a livelihood and to earn money to send home to their families back home in Cuba,” said Comella.

The refugees would not be able to work in this southern European country of 40 million if the laws were strictly enforced, one Cuban refugee, who identified himself simply as “José”, told IPS. However, they are all able to survive, and find work, even if it is without a legal contract.

“In Havana, I bought a letter inviting me to go to Russia,” said José. “It cost me 200 dollars. Then I paid another 100 to legalise the letter, and 150 for the ‘white card’ (permission to leave Cuba), in the ministry.”

With those documents in hand, José was able to purchase a plane ticket to Moscow, and to leave Cuba legally. The rest of his story is similar to that of other Cubans who reach the Barajas airport and refuse to continue on to their final destinations.

In the past week, one Cuban travelling from Havana to Angola also applied for asylum in Madrid. “Now they’ve started to sell invitations to Angola,” said José.

Comella also said a small minority of the Cubans seeking asylum or refugee status in Madrid were people who had actually been invited to Russia, by the relatives of Russian women who have married Cuban men and live in Cuba.

The Cuban Centre as well as the Hispanic-Cuban Foundation, created by the centre-right governing Popular Party, provide support to the recent arrivals, in the form of cash and contacts with Cubans living in Spain.

Cubans who apply for asylum or refuge upon arrival to Barajas are “the responsibility of the Spanish government,” an authorised spokesman for the Cuban embassy in Madrid told IPS.

“Those who board a plane in Havana have their papers in order, and no one who complies with the laws can be kept from leaving the country,” he added.

According to CEAR, Cuban refugees take advantage of the cool relations between the Spanish administration of Prime Minister José María Aznár and the Castro government, while refugees coming from war-torn Colombia, where not even the right to life is guaranteed, are rejected.