Cuba, a passport to the ocean:
Havana opens its borders

That  by Raúl Castro, and in force in Cuba from today, under the name of
migratory reforma , was the most anticipated turn of freedom by the population. The possibility of obtaining a passport by simply requesting it in one of the two hundred offices opened by the State along the whole island. “A passport to jump into the sea”, some make ironic, because obtaining a visa for another country will remain for the majority only a mirage.

But the gate is open. The regime no longer denies, almost to anyone, the adventure of a return trip abroad. However, the new law preserves some precautions. Political dissidents suspected of wanting to travel only to raise funds and make anti-revolutionary propaganda will find it difficult to obtain a passport. But also, baseball and basketball players, very much courted by US teams. Military and “high-end” scientists. The impact of the novelty can be assessed only with time but it is likely that it will have positive effects on relations with the United States, a country that still prohibits its citizens from going to Cuba.

Since the first great exoduses of the post-revolutionary years, leaving Cuba has meant losing thousands of families. To leave meant to enter the limbo of the “traitors” of the revolution, the so-called gusanos: worms. But also, to renounce their home – which was immediately confiscated – and above all to their nationality and any hope of return.

In the 1960s at the airport checkpoint the guards seized the jewels from the ladies of the bourgeoisie and searched their suitcases for dollars and silverware. They were the associates of the dictator Batista who were leaving and the Revolution – which had already been shot in large numbers – could afford any abuse. Later the procedure did not change much and for 50 years the control was iron. Together with the girls who married a foreigner to leave, only the members of the nomenclature, the artists, the doctors on mission and the sportsmen had the privilege of being able to go out and return. For all the others the obsession was the famous tarjeta blanca, the white card that the state issued with the dropper only to some elected officials.

(January 14, 2013)