Cuba accuses US of flouting exit visa deal [View All]

Source: AFP/via Raw Story

Cuba on Tuesday accused Washington of flouting a carefully-crafted deal on exit visas to the United States, in an effort to destabilize the Communist island nation.

Havana said that between October 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007 the United States authorized barely half of the 20,000 exit visas that the two countries agreed would be issued by US authorities before the end of September 2007.

So far, just 11,000 exit visas have been issued by the US Cuban Interests section, giving the United States little more than two months to issue the remaining 9,000-plus exit visas if it hopes to comply with a 1994 bilateral agreement.

"One has to ask what the US government is up to with this behavior," Cuba's foreign ministry wrote in a statement.

"Why is it trying to undermine the immigration situation between the two countries?"

The statement added that the "grave and unjustifiable violation of the accord" is an effort to placate the powerful and staunchly anti-Communist Cuban American community.

A destabilized Cuba would be a "gift to placate this country's most bitter enemies: the Cuban-American mafia and its representatives in the US Congress," the foreign ministry wrote.

Authorities in Havana added that failing to adhere to the previously agreed upon levels set for legal emigration from Cuba to the United States could lead to a surge in illegal emigration. The Havana government warned that Cubans may feel compelled to exit the country illegally via raft and other watercraft, to avail themselves of the US "wet foot, dry foot" policy which allows any Cuban who reaches US soil to apply for residency.



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Why is Bush jacking with this agreement? This is going to lead to more Cubans killed trying to get to the U.S.





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