Open Sesame… Travel Restrictions in Cuba / Jeovany Jimenez Vega

Open Sesame… Travel Restrictions in Cuba / Jeovany Jimenez Vega
Jeovany J. Vega, Translator: Unstated

On Friday, April 20, Ricardo Alarcon, President of the Cuban Parliament,
in an interview with the digital daily World, of the Huffingtonpost.com,
reaffirmed Raul Castro's announcement from last year that Cuba will
launch "… a radical and thorough immigration reform in the coming months
…" which will remove restrictions we've had for decades on Cubans
traveling abroad. Let's remember that even now, to travel abroad Cubans
need an exit permit, at the extortionate cost of $150 U.S., which is
good for 30 days and can be extended 10 times, after which they must
return home or lose the right to reside in their own country.

In force since the dawn of the Revolutionary process, restrictions
imposed on the travel of Cubans to and from abroad, have become one of
the most serious stigma carried by this government. This abusive policy
has been responsible for an incalculable amount of suffering for our
people, having separated for decades, and even permanently, thousands of
families.

Alarcon also said that "… there is another explanation for these
restrictions: the need to protect our human capital. The training of
physicians, technicians, teachers, etc., is very expensive to the Cuban
State and the United States does everything to deprive us of this human
wealth."

Sustained by the need to avoid a brain drain, among other arguments,
this policy has systematically deprived Cubans of one of the most basic
rights of man: the right to free movement and to choose where to live.
But in resolving this issue, it seemed much simpler to our government to
retain, by force, the professionals, than to guarantee them a dignified
way of life which, in medical terms, would be the equivalent of
amputating the limb of a patient suffering from lymphatic vessel
inflammation which, it is true, regardless of the consequences, would
"solve" their problem.

Alarcon said the reform will also favor the Cuban immigrants who today
need an entry permit, who do not now have the same "profile" as those
who left in the early years.

"Things have changed a lot (…). Nearly half a million Cubans installed
outside our borders visit each year. The vast majority of Cuban
migration has a normal relationship with their country of origin…"

What has never been even remotely normal, however, is the relationship
of the Cuban State with respect to that emigration. As for the "profile"
of these emigrants, Mr. Alarcón knows that definitely changed after that
wave of the first five years of the Revolution, when it constituted
mainly of former Batista supporters and oligarchs.

By the time of Camarioca, of the Mariel boat lift, and of the Maleconazo
and the subsequent rafter crisis in 1994, Cuban migration had been made
up of people who were, as a rule, younger, and desperate to having lost
all hope in their country.

Alarcon also said that "…the immigration issue (…) has always been used
as a weapon to destabilize Cuba since 1959 and as an element of
distortion of the Cuban reality…" and, he says it as if he were talking
about some sneaky trick orchestrated by Yankee think tanks, as if it
were a true aberration systematically and massively perpetrated for half
a century by the Cuban Government against the will and interest of its
people.

At this point some questions present themselves: Why right now and how
far will they dare to go? In Havana circles of thought whose opinion I
could sound out, it is said that these measures could be oriented with
the foresight to open the door to a Cuban emigration that so far has
been unnaturally excluded from investing in its own country due to the
absurd policy followed by our government, which for decades has
preferred to negotiate with foreign investors before offering any
opportunity to offer its own emigrants or their descendants. This
posture presumably reflects a deep fear of the influence that they might
come to gain in the domestic political environment.

This may or may not be the result of the uncertainty that surrounds Hugo
Chavez, whose health is perceived to be broken just a few months before
the upcoming Venezuelan elections — because losing his support now would
be lethal — as will be seen.

But what offers few doubts is that the emigration, although eager to
invest in Cuba, given the traumatic memory of the expropriations of the
past, might be demanding a series of legal safeguards to make sure that,
this time, their investment would not be impounded, beginning with
radical changes in their migratory status which, until today, has
completely denied their Cuban citizenship.

Another side of the coin makes this moment most "opportune" — for the
Cuban government — as the time to make this decision, because if they
finally decide to open the doors wide, then there would be embassies in
Havana that would possibly close theirs, and show more aversion to
issuing visas, not to mention that the U.S. government might repeat the
controversial Cuban Adjustment Act.

Even so, those who finally manage to travel will find the majority of
their destinations in the world mired in the worst economic crisis since
the Crash of 1929, and not offering too many opportunities right now to
any newcomers. If to this we add that those who leave no longer face the
confiscation of their house and so can leave here their home, family and
concrete interests and can return when they please, then I would dare to
predict that the first wave of emigrants would stabilize in a few years.

In exchange, the remittances would increase and provide considerable
oxygen to the economy — in this sense the investments of the emigrants,
were they authorized, would be crucial — and the country would begin to
flow in a much more natural way.

So, how far will they dare to go. They certainly have to be thinking
big, or everything would be half measures. For an immigration reform
today at the level the Cuban people need, they have to leave behind all
the current policies. They have to guarantee, unequivocally, through an
appropriate body of binding laws, that every Cuban citizen can enjoy his
or her right to freely leave the country, and equally to enter it
without conditions of any kind including, of course, political ones, for
differences of opinion, which would exclude only those involved in
terrorist acts, or those who have a debt to the legal system, beyond
which absolutely any official who dared to violate this right of a Cuban
citizen would be legally called before a People's court.

It is also urgently needed to eliminate once and for all the ominous
category of "final departure," a monster that has uprooted entire
generations of Cuba, as well as the controversial "letters of
invitation" and of course, crushed under its own weight, the odious
permission to leave or "white card" whose funeral no one would attend.

But one point I can not overlook in this matter is one of the most
controversial nuances, and that is the solution to the problem or
releasing those workers in my sector who are required to apply for
permission if they wish to permanently or temporarily leave the country.

Who could forget the thousands of former members of the Cuban Public
Health sector, who, overwhelmed by spurious wages and harsh living
conditions, and finding no other means whatsoever to emigrate, decided
to leave from some Medical Mission work abroad, and so were branded with
the status of deserters and condemned to banishment, not permitted to
enter their own country for at least 10 years?

Would anyone dare to catalog as normal the relations with these
emigrants before such heinous treatment? Without any doubt, we can
assert that the workers in the Cuban Public Health have received the
most denigration treatment in this story and today our government has
the opportunity to redeem its position, hopefully to act with wisdom.

Any approach that they apply to the immigration issue at this time, that
does not address everything at once and guarantees our right to travel,
will restrict the freedom of the Cuban people, and therefore work
against the prosperity of the country.

April 30 2012

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