[NYTr] US Ploy Against Cuba on Course? Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 17:27:10 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Agencia Cubana de Noticias (ACN) http://ainch.ain.cu/mailman/listinfo/ingles US Ploy Against Cuba on Course? By Angel RodrC-guez Alvarez AIN Special Service What does Washington want with the recent violation of the migratory agreements signed with Cuba in September of 1994 and May of 1995? The question on the issue is answered after reading the Cuban Foreign Ministry statements of July 16th and August 21st. In the first statement, the foreign ministry denounced that during the nine months from October 1st 2006 to June 30th of this year, the US Interest Section in Havana granted entry visas to migrate legally to the US to only 10,724 people, representing only 53.6 percent of the minimum annual quota of 20,000 which Washington is committed to comply with by the end of September, according to the bilateral accords. In the second Foreign Ministry statement, the denunciation deals with the same issue and reviews another type of violation: when 44 Cuban citizens were captured at sea attempting to reach US territory and were not returned as stipulated in the agreements and were then taken to the illegally occupied US Naval Base in Guantanamo. What calls ones attention was that in this case US authorities did not comply with the agreements signed on May 2nd, 1995 and decided to face up to the complex task of looking for destination for the illegal immigrants. This is confirmed when 17 of the 44 immigrants went on a three week hunger strike to protest about their detention and demand entry into the US. The situation forced Washington to get the Hungarian government involved in the situation offering 29 Cubans political asylum forcing the US taxpayers to pay for their lodgings, winter clothes and language course for one year. Five of them will be granted US visas and the rest will wait for permission from a third country. As the Cuban Foreign Ministry recalls, 16 percent of those intercepted on the high seas are not returned to Cuba, while a refugee center is being constructed at the Guantanamo Base, the Cuban Adjustment Act remains intact and the so called dry foot-wet foot policy stimulates the illegal immigration, sacrificing so many lives. "Criminal" is the only adjective we can use for the Empire?s conduct and its lackeys, with the objective of denigrating Cuba and its socialist system. "The Hungarian government, the Cuban Foreign Ministry points out, knows well, as well as its master, that these people are not politically persecuted, much less ?figures belonging to anti Cuban elements?. They are, simply, immigrants for economic reasons who probably do not qualify to be granted visas by the US government because of their past or status." These maneuvers, denounced by Cuba, feed the suspicion that the US administration is attempting to create the right conditions to provoke a mass exodus of Cubans towards US coasts, strengthen the already tense relations and attempt the adoption of punitive measures against Cuba. It concerns, evidently, a ploy on course that must be made known and observed closely by the international community. /map * ================================================================= .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org . List Archives: https://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ . Subscribe: https://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr =================================================================