Prison Open and Minds Still Closed

Prison Open and Minds Still Closed / Rosa Maria Rodriguez
Posted on July 1, 2013

The new immigration law that went into effect on January 14 of this
year, returned the right to travel to most Cubans, although it's a right
euphemistically recovered, because only a privileged minority can manage
a trip abroad.

Now many are asking themselves if the more than five decade closure and
violation of this inalienable right had any justification in national
security and politics, or if it was a simple whim because since January
we can see that opponents of the regime have left and entered our
country freely and what happened? What star fell? Not even one of those
on the epaulettes of those who oppress us. For so many years they have
hijacked, among others, our right to travel, and now there are more than
a few who question whether so many restrictions and abuses happened just
to reaffirm dictatorial power, domination and submission.

Two constants dominate the social dialogue on this topic: one, is that
no one receives wages commensurate with the current cost of living in
Cuba that will allow them to self-finance an excursion to any
coordinates beyond our borders — it's expensive enough to do it within
our national territory — and the other, is the dependence on funding the
cost of the trip from the outside. There are many who compare this
situation with the historic event of the abolition of slavery and the
attitudes of those first freedmen, who didn't know what to do with their
new condition, and how to pay for their expenses on becoming a salaried
employee.

They strangled Cuban society so much for so many years, that I don't
doubt they would also review, rectify and allow the ex-prisoners "on
parole" who were sanctioned to exaggerated penalties in 2003, who also
can travel abroad, since they only owed the State, not society, the
specific cruelty of a group of dictators who like overseers in colonial
times, still persist in putting Cubans in the stocks of lack of
liberties and trampling on their rights.

27 June 2013

Source: "Prison Open and Minds Still Closed / Rosa Maria Rodriguez |
Translating Cuba" -
http://translatingcuba.com/prison-open-and-minds-still-closed-rosa-maria-rodriguez/