Rafael Hernandez, editor of Temas, was denied a visa. He taught at Columbia University last fall. |
By Peter Orsi, Associated Press, May 19, 2012
Havana— The
political hubbub over Washington's decision to grant a visa to the daughter of
Cuban President Raul Castro has eclipsed the fact the State Department
simultaneously denied nearly a dozen other prominent Cubans permits to attend
an academic conference in California, among them some of the island's most
independent and open-minded scholars.
They include
academics with a history of collaborating with American researchers,
distinguished visiting professors who took up temporary posts at universities
like Harvard and Columbia, and some of the most outspoken voices for change on
the island, Cuba watchers and analysts said Friday.
The ruling has many
scratching their heads.
"It's just
bizarre," said Joy Olson, executive director of the Washington Office on
Latin America, or WOLA, an independent think tank. "I have trouble believing
that all of these people who have been up here working at the most prestigious
universities in the United States have gone from one day to the next to being a
security threat."
"These are the
people we as a country should want to be talking to," Olson added.
The State
Department does not talk about individual visa cases as a matter of policy, but
spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Friday that 77 Cubans had applied to attend
the Latin American Studies Association, or LASA, conference in San Francisco
next week. Of those, 60 were approved, 11 were rejected and six are still
pending.
Nuland said denials
happen for numerous reasons including security concerns or other questions
about applicants' reasons for traveling.
"For these 60
who were issued ... we thought that if they were applying to come to this
congress they were appropriate and legitimate participants in the congress, and
we didn't have any reason to have concerns about how they would conduct
themselves in the United States or any security concerns," Nuland said.
One of those denied
a visa is Carlos Alzugaray, a longtime diplomat and professor who has publicly
recommended Raul Castro's government deepen nascent free-market economic
reforms, called for changes to restrictive travel rules and even urged a change
of "mentality" within the Communist Party.
Another is Rafael
Hernandez, a political scientist and editor of the magazine Temas, considered
one of the most independent in Cuba for its non-ideological bent and varied
content from across the political spectrum. Just last fall, he was a visiting
professor at Columbia, he told The Associated Press.
"In this group
there's not one of us who does not defend dialogue and exchange with the United
States," Hernandez said.
President Barack
Obama has made increased academic, cultural and people-to-people exchanges a
cornerstone of his Cuba policy, and such trips have greatly increased in recent
years.
Yet on the LASA
visas, the White House has taken fire from both sides.
Cuban-American
politicians were irate this week when news broke that among those granted visas
were Mariela Castro, the island's most prominent gay rights advocate, who is to
chair a panel at the San Francisco conference, and Eusebio Leal, a historian
who has spearheaded the renovation of Old Havana and sits on the powerful
Communist Party Central Committee. He spoke at the Brookings Institute in
Washington on Friday.
"The
administration's appalling decision to allow regime agents into the U.S.
directly contradicts Congressional intent and longstanding U.S. foreign
policy," wrote Representatives Mario Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and
David Rivera of Florida, along with Albio Sires of New Jersey in a letter to
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Hernandez, the
magazine editor, said the visa decisions seemed arbitrary and speculated that
the White House was mixing in some denials with the majority that were approved
due to political pressure.
"They
have denied visas to several of us who frequently travel to the United
States," Hernandez said. "That is the cost, I suppose, that they are
paying to bring in the rest. They have to throw a piece of meat to (Cuban
American hardline politicians) ... because they gave a visa to Mariela and
Eusebio."
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