Cuban government to let Cubans travel freely

Posted on Tuesday, 10.16.12

Cuban government to let Cubans travel freely
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ and PETER ORSI
Associated Press

HAVANA -- The Cuban government announced Tuesday that it will no longer
require islanders to apply for an exit visa, eliminating a much-loathed
bureaucratic procedure that has been a major impediment for many seeking
to travel overseas for more than a half-century.

A notice published in Communist Party newspaper Granma said the change
takes effect Jan. 14, and beginning on that date islanders will only
have to show their passport and a visa from the country they are
traveling to.

It is the most significant advance this year in President Raul Castro's
five-year plan of reform that has already seen the legalization of home
and car sales and a big increase in the number of Cubans owning private
businesses.

"As part of the work under way to update the current migratory policy
and adjust it to the conditions of the present and the foreseeable
future, the Cuban government, in exercise of its sovereignty, has
decided to eliminate the procedure of the exit visa for travel to the
exterior," read the notice.

Migration is a highly politicized issue in Cuba and beyond its borders.

Under the "wet foot, dry foot" policy, the United States allows nearly
all Cubans who reach its territory to remain. Granma published an
accompanying editorial blaming the travel restrictions on U.S. attempts
to topple the island's government, plant spies and recruit its
best-educated citizens.

"It is because of this that any analysis of Cuba's problematic migration
inevitably passes through the policy of hostility that the U.S.
government has developed against the country for more than 50 years,"
the editorial said.

It assured Cubans that the government recognizes their right to travel
abroad and said the new measure is part of "an irreversible process of
normalization of relations between emigrants and their homeland."

On the streets of Havana, the news was met with a mixture of delight and
astonishment, after all the previous times over the years when officials
spoke of their desire to lift the exit visa, but talk failed to turn
into concrete change.

"No! Wow, how great!" said Mercedes Delgado, a 73-year-old retiree when
told of the news that was announced overnight. "Citizens' rights are
being restored."

"Look, I ask myself how far are we going to go with these changes. They
have me a little confused because now all that was done during 50 years,
it turns out we're changing it," said Maria Romero, a cleaning worker
who was headed to her job Tuesday morning. "Everything they told us
then, it wasn't true. I tell you, I don't understand anything."

The move eliminates a restriction in place since 1961, the height of the
Cold War, requiring Cubans to get approval from their government for
permission to leave their own country.

Cubans now will also not have to present the long-required letter of
invitation from a foreign institution or person in the country they plan
to visit.

The measure also extends to 24 months the amount of time Cubans can
remain abroad, and they can request an extension when that runs out.
Currently, Cubans lose residency and other rights including social
security and free health care and education after 11 months.

Still, the notice said Cuba plans to put limits on travel within
unspecified sectors.

Doctors, scientists, members of the military and others considered
valuable parts of society currently face restrictions on travel to
combat brain drain.

"The update to the migratory policy takes into account the right of the
revolutionary State to defend itself from the interventionist and
subversive plans of the U.S. government and its allies," the note said.
"Therefore, measures will remain to preserve the human capital created
by the Revolution in the face of the theft of talent applied by the
powerful."

Cuba has on some occasions denied exit visas to government when they
sought to travel abroad, and dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez said she
has been turned down 20 times over the last five years.

"I have the suitcase ready to travel. ... Let's see if I get a flight
for Jan. 14, 2013, to try out the new law.

But she expressed concern that officials might now control travel merely
by denying passports.

Granma's editorial said the measure will help address the needs of the
Cuban diaspora.

More than 1 million people of Cuban origin live in the United States,
and thousands more are in Europe.

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Associated Press writer Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana contributed to this
report.

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Peter Orsi is on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi

Andrea Rodriguez is on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ARodriguezAP

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