Will Cuba's Absurd Travel and Immigration Restrictions End?

Yoani Sanchez - Award-winning Cuban blogger

Will Cuba's Absurd Travel and Immigration Restrictions End?
Posted: 10/16/2012 12:21 pm

I have accumulated 20 negatives in just five years to my requests to
travel. Twenty times I have tried to leave my country and just received
a "no" as a response from the Cuban authorities. Although it is hard to
accustom oneself to such an absurdity, the truth is that I have learned
to live on my island prison. I have consoled myself by saying that all
the raw material of my writing was on this Island, in its reality and
that it would also be very hard for me to be separated from my family
for even a few weeks.

But these were phrases of relief that I repeated to myself from
frustration and anger at my inability to travel, so as not to suffer
emotional hurt. It was a way of maintaining mental hygiene amid a
feeling of seclusion.

This week a new travel and migration law has been approved that will be
effective on January 13, 2013. As reflected in its multiple clauses,
from that date Cubans will not need permission to travel outside our
country, nor will we need a letter of invitation from a stranger or
relative who emigrated. Long-awaited news that has been greeted with joy
by millions of Cubans within and outside the Island.

In any event, although still lacking a test of the reality of the limits
and scope of the new provisions, there are some suggestions that the
government will maintain a filter for professionals and critics of the
system.

For now, I'm packing my suitcase. I have started to tell myself that it
is possible, that they will let me go, that I will board the plane in
January. But maybe it's just one more optimistic phrase that I repeat to
myself. In a few months I will have my proof.

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