A week before I presented for the first time my Petition for Foreign Travel in the territorial Office of Immigration and Aliens of Guanabacoa, northeast of Havana, a young official from the State Security went to interrogate my younger son in the National Neurosciences Center, where he works as an investigator. The alleged negotiator wanted to know if I intended to travel with my wife to Spain on a temporary or permanent basis, for the purpose of “promoting my case.”
June 12, three months after such humiliating request and receiving on five occasions the answer: “Refused, you appear on the list of those who cannot travel abroad” — I again presented myself at the immigration office with a document in which I demanded an explanation for such prohibition. That day, the same official who interrogated my younger son at the Neurosciences Center, flew on his Suzuki motorcycle to the home of my older son who lives in El Cotorro and works as a lawyer for the municipal collective office. On that occasion, he tried to explore my possible actions and promised “to expedite the exit.”
At the beginning of November I still have not received an answer to my claim from Major Gricet Alleguis, Chief of the Territorial Office of Immigration in Guanabacoa, nor fromLieutenant Colonel Dania Gonzalez Rodriguez, to whom I delivered a copy of my claim at the National Directorate of Immigration and Aliens, located at 22 and 3ra, Miramar, Havana. Latal Dania advised me that they reserve “the right to give no explanation. . .”
Between June and October, I believe in August, a young official nicknamed Simon knocked at the door of my apartment in downtown Havana, with a citation for an “exploratory contact” with the first operational officer against independent journalism. After the brief and respectful “contact,” achieved at the Police Station located on Dragons Street, Old Havana township, it was clear that I would not leave Cuban if I did not present the petition for “Permanent Exit from the country” instead of the “Permit to Travel Abroad.” The said Simon was a “facilitator” and even gave me his telephone number so that I or one of my sons could communicate to him the beginning of the new process.
Last October 2, I presented the said “Permanent Exit” at the Office of Immigration and Aliens at 17 and K, Vedado, in spite of the expiration of my family reunification visa issued in March by the Spanish Consulate in Havana,which was kind enough to grant me a new visa in less than a month. On presenting myself with the visa on the first of November, an employee repeated to me the film’s chorus: “Refused, you appear on the list of those who cannot travel abroad.”
What list is that? Under what law is it issued? Why does the Castro regime cling to protecting the life of individuals, refusing them the right of free movement, choosing where to live and leave or enter any country, including their own?
I suppose that the Immigration and Alien Unit of Plaza will know how to answer my questions Wednesday the 7th of November at 1 pm. Otherwise I will begin to fight for my freedom in the streets of Havana. Maybe the game of the foreman against the runaway slave will advance or they will put me in stocks in order to comply with the blacklist of the excluded ones, those daring ones who raise their voices personally and try to leave the herd.
Translated by mlk
November 4 2012
