By WILL WEISSERT
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 17, 2007; 11:08 AM
HAVANA -- Cuba chided the United States on Tuesday for being too slow to
issue visas to Cubans wanting off the island.
The Foreign Relations Ministry indicated the dearth of visas for Cubans
could be part of what it sees as President Bush's efforts to destabilize
the communist government and warned it could lead to a spike in illegal
immigration.
Under a 1994 agreement, Washington uses a lottery system to grant up to
20,000 Cubans permission to emigrate to America each fiscal year ending
Sept. 30. But Cuba's government said Tuesday that through June 30, only
10,724 Cubans had been granted visas _ just 53.6 percent of the annual
minimum.
"It is evident a considerable delay exists," the ministry said in a
statement published on the front page of the Communist Party newspaper
Granma.
"Why would (the United States) want to make the migratory situation
worse between both countries?" the statement asked, accusing Bush of
wishing Fidel Castro would die and being desperate to "force the
'changes' he wants to impose on Cuba, even when they give rise to a
situation of instability that will surely also affect the United States."
Castro, who turns 81 next month, has not been seen in public since
announcing that emergency intestinal surgery was forcing him to step
down in favor of a provisional government headed by his younger brother
Raul. Life on the island, however, has remained little-changed.
The U.S. and Cuba do not have formal diplomatic relations but maintain
interests sections _ instead of embassies _ in each other's territories.
A spokesman at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana could not be reached
for comment Tuesday.
It is not unusual for U.S. authorities to wait until close to the end of
the fiscal year to issue the minimum number of Cuban visas, however, and
the State Department has in the past accused Cuba of manipulating the
process.
Some Cubans who get U.S. visas are denied exit permits by Havana, which
arbitrarily deems them "defectors," the State Department says. Cuba also
regularly refuses to allow doctors and other medical professionals to
leave even if they have visas.
The U.S. further claims that Cuba collects an estimated $12 million per
year in fees for exit permits and medical examinations that some
U.S.-bound migrants have difficulty paying.
A U.S. policy that grew out of the 1994 immigration agreement is the
so-called "wet foot/dry foot," where by Cubans who are interdicted at
sea are generally returned to their homeland, while those who reach U.S.
shores are usually allowed to stay.
Cuba says the policy encourages its citizens to seek risky and illegally
ways to emigrate. Thousands of Cubans attempt to leave the island on
makeshift rafts or people smugglers' speedboats bound for America every
year.
The Foreign Ministry went on to "insist" that the United States issue at
least 20,000 visas before the deadline, scrap "wet-foot/dry foot" and
"cease the manipulation of this topic for political ends." It also
demanded that Washington, "end the incessant subversive propaganda and
psychological war against Cuba."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR2007071700634.html
No comments:
Post a Comment