Cuba Headlines

Cuba News, Breaking News, Articles and Daily Information


Head of Cuban Interests Section in Washington Denounced the US Government's Non Compliance of the Migration Accords Signed
The head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, Dagoberto Gonzalez, offered a press conference on Wednesday on the US government's non compliance of the migration accords signed in 1994.

Full statement:

Last July 16th, the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Cuba publicly alerted that during the current fiscal year, the United States Interests Section in Havana had only granted 10 724 visas of the 20 000 minimum quota to Cuban nationals who wish to emigrate to the United States, as it is established by the Migration Accord signed by both countries on September 9, 1994.

The Cuban statement pointed out that if such tendency continued the United States government would not comply with what is established in the above mentioned Accord. The United States Interests Section in Havana, confirmed through a press statement, on July 17, 2007, that the United States government will not comply this fiscal year with the minimum quota of 20 000 visas for Cuban nationals.

The next day, the Department of State spokesman, Sean McCormack, repeated the same message. Both the United States Interests Section and the Department of State spokesman blamed the Cuban authorities for its non-compliance, having as excuse a supposed obstruction to the entrance to our country of the personnel and materials that the United States Interests Section needs.

We categorically reject that accusation. The United States authorities deliberately lie. The United States Interests Section and the Department of State know that all the visas to the diplomatic personnel in charge of the implementation of the migration accords have been granted by Cuba within the established terms.

The shortage of materials is absolutely false because that diplomatic mission imported
80. 3 tons of supplies in 2006 and, according to a report of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), about 50 to 70 percent of it was not used for that office's work and maintenance, it was used for the promotion of subversives activities against our country, in gross violation of the Accord setting up the Interests Sections in 1977, and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations that clearly establishes the purposes and limits of the use of the diplomatic pouch.

I must also add that the United States Government, in gross violation of the Migration Accords, does not repatriate all the Cuban illegal immigrants intercepted at sea. All these truths have been communicated to the Department of State through a diplomatic note of our Interests Section and, today, we expose them to you.

It now corresponds to the United States Government to end with the manipulation of the migratory issue in its relations with Cuba, to comply with the obligations it assumed with the signature of the migration accords of 1994 and 1995, to discontinue the encouragement to the illegal immigration from Cuba which is expressed in the "Wet Foot Dry Foot" policy and in the Cuban Adjustment Act that has cost hundreds of human lives in the Florida Straits.

Cuba will keep on doing its best efforts to have a legal, safe and orderly migration, complying with its obligations with these accords. The United States must act in the same way; otherwise it shall assume the responsibility of the non-compliance of its compromises.

Source: Radio Habana Cuba

Related News


Comments