Lamentablemente, no he podido localizar en el archivo de El Nuevo Herald el artículo de Cancio Isla para incluir la fecha en que fue publicado.
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Un viaje de turismo a Cuba
por Wilfredo Cancio Isla
El Nuevo Herald
Un viaje de turismo a Cuba terminó en una experiencia traumática para la ciudadana canadiense Onelia ''Nely'' Ross, que todavía busca explicaciones a sus cinco días de arresto en una cárcel de la isla.
A través del International Trade Canada (ITC) --su departamento de asuntos exteriores-- el gobierno canadiense ha pedido explicaciones a La Habana sobre lo ocurrido, luego que Ross denunciara abusos físicos contra su persona durante la detención.
''Fueron cinco días de terror'', relató Ross en entrevista con El Nuevo Herald. ``De pronto me vi golpeada y humillada en un calabozo, y sentí el mismo miedo de cuando salí de Cuba por primera vez''.
La mujer de 48 años, esposa de un diplomático canadiense y residente en Ottawa desde 1978, decidió acompañar a una pareja de amigos cubanos en visita de turismo a la provincia de Holguín, en el oriente de la isla. Los tres volaron en Cubana de Aviación desde Montreal a Holguín el pasado 6 de febrero y todo parecía listo para una espléndida estancia allí, lejos del inclemente invierno canadiense.
Pero tras el aterrizaje en el aeropuerto de Holguín, Ross vio tornarse la escapada al trópico en una cruenta pesadilla.
Las autoridades cubanas le dijeron que estaba tratando de entrar ilegalmente al país y que debía retornar de inmediato a Canadá.
''Era absurdo'', recordó Ross. ``El 3 de febrero había visitado la embajada de Cuba en Ottawa, con mi pasaporte cubano para habilitarlo, y la cónsul [Carmen E. Peterssen] me trató como siempre, me hizo un recibo por el pago de los 160 dólares y todo quedó listo''.
Pero los funcionarios de inmigración en Holguín consideraron que había un error en la fecha estampada en el permiso y le negaron el acceso al territorio nacional. En medio de un careo, cuatro oficiales entraron y sacaron a Ross de la sala por la fuerza.
''Empecé a gritar para que los extranjeros se percataran de lo que estaba ocurriendo'', contó ella. ``Me golpearon y dos mujeres uniformadas comenzaron a tratarme vulgarmente... entonces me tiré en el piso para tratar de defenderme''.
Estuvo cinco horas sin que se le permitiera tomar agua ni usar el baño. A las 11 p.m. fue trasladada en avión a La Habana para ser procesada.
Ross cumplió cinco días de encarcelamiento antes de poder abandonar la isla. Se le retuvieron los $500 que llevaba para vacacionar y, al ser liberada, tuvo que costear todos los ''servicios recibidos'': $16 diarios por la celda, $12 por los alimentos que nunca consumió y $42 por el transporte de ida y vuelta al aeropuerto.
Gracias a que la pareja amiga acompañante llamó a la Embajada de Canadá en La Habana, la cónsul Nathalie Garon pudo visitarla en la prisión. Finalmente pudo regresar a Ottawa el 10 de febrero.
Garon declinó hablar sobre el caso y remitió las preguntas de El Nuevo Herald a la oficina de asuntos públicos del ITC.
''El gobierno canadiense presentó las quejas por maltratos físicos de la señora Ross ante el gobierno cubano mediante una nota diplomática'', dijo Cloé Rodrigue, portavoz del ITC.
La funcionaria declinó precisar la fecha y contenido de la nota, o si había tenido respuesta. La embajada cubana en Ottawa no respondió los mensajes de El Nuevo Herald.
La ciudadana mexicana Eva Badillo, residente en Campeche, compartió con Ross la experiencia de la cárcel en Cuba. '' A las dos horas que yo había entrado llegó Nely, venía con moretones en los brazos y las piernas'', recordó Badillo, retenida por sospechas de falso matrimonio con un ciudadano cubano.
Badillo agradece su liberación a Ross, que pasó la información a la embajada mexicana tras la visita de Garon.
''Todavía me estoy recuperando de este trauma'', expresó Ross, que dirige un negocio de contabilidad en Ottawa. ``Yo no emigré por asuntos políticos ni jamás he estado en política fuera de Cuba; todo esto forma parte de las arbitrariedades que existen allí para extorsionar al cubano que vive en el extranjero''.
Ross es graduada de Economía y Humanidades en la Universidad de Ottawa. Este era su tercer viaje a Cuba desde 1978, los dos anteriores por motivos familiares.
''Uno se siente violada en muchos sentidos'', expresó Ross durante la entrevista en Miami. "Quiero que el mundo se entere de los robos y los atropellos, empezando por muchos canadienses que ven a Cuba como un paraíso''.
Canadá es el primer mercado turístico de Cuba, con 250,000 visitantes por año y vuelos regulares que vinculan a 15 ciudades canadienses con siete destinos en la isla.
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Onelia "Nelly" Ross was jailed for not having proper papers, woman finds herself without any rights
By Marina Jiménez
The Globe and Mail
Monday, June 27, 2005 Page A5
Onelia Ross, a Cuban-Canadian, looked forward to sipping mojitos and swimming in the warm turquoise waters of the Caribbean during a trip back to Cuba with two friends in February.
Instead, she spent five days sitting in a Havana prison cell, choking down watery soup and brown rice, wondering how her beach adventure had turned into every tourist's worst nightmare.
"They held me for five days while they investigated the case and they didn't let me call a lawyer," Ms. Ross said from her Ottawa home. "It was an undignified way to be treated over essentially a bureaucratic mix-up. When you're in Cuba you have no rights whatsoever."
She also said she was manhandled by her jailors and suffered bruising and scrapes. But worst of all was the psychological trauma. "This is what a police state is like."
The Globe and Mail's calls and e-mails to the Cuban embassy in Ottawa were not returned.
But Reynald Doiron, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs, confirmed that Ms. Ross was held in prison for five days. "We sent a diplomatic note to Cuban authorities requesting they check into the allegation of Ms. Ross being beaten or roughed up and no reply has been received so far," he said.
Ms. Ross's dual citizenship "may be a complicating factor" in receiving a timely response, he said. "However the treatment of a Canadian citizen as reported by her is of concern to Foreign Affairs and deserves a full explanation. We hope they will provide one."
Ms. Ross, a 47-year-old accountant, has never been involved in politics or been critical of Cuba, and left the country 28 years ago when she met and married a Canadian diplomat who was posted in Havana. All Cubans, even those with dual nationality, must enter the country using their Cuban passports, and Ms. Ross had returned twice without incident.
This time, Ms. Ross went to the Cuban embassy in Ottawa and paid $160 to have her passport renewed.
On Feb. 6, 2005, she flew into Holguin in Oriente province with two friends, and was surprised when an immigration official said her Cuban passport didn't have the right entry permit. He said she would have to return immediately to Ottawa.
"He accused me of trying to enter the country illegally. I said no, that there must be a mistake," recalled Ms. Ross. As she argued with the official, the situation devolved into a shouting match at the small airport in Holguin, in the west of Cuba.
That's when two Interior Ministry officials detained her in a room. Her friends had already passed through immigration and were unaware of her predicament.
"The security agents tried to make me agree that I would leave the country. I refused and asked them to fax the Cuban embassy in Ottawa and clear up the problem with the entry permit. Finally, two women came in and started grabbing me."
They detained her for four hours, and then told her they were transporting her to Havana where she would be placed in an immigration detention centre.
On board the plane, Ms. Ross says she bribed a security guard into allowing her to call her family in Havana when she landed.
At the detention centre, she was searched, and her money and belongings locked up. "They didn't let me take a change of clothing or a bar of soap, nothing," she said.
She shared a cell with a Cuban-American who also lacked the proper entry documents, and a Mexican woman engaged to a Cuban. The Mexican woman had been denied entry because officials didn't believe her relationship with her fiancé was genuine.
"The jail was dirty and there was no water. I slept on a metal bed. Written on the walls were the telephone numbers of all the foreign embassies and notes about how much the prisoners had suffered," Ms. Ross said.
After several interviews, Cuban officials finally allowed her to contact the Canadian embassy for consular assistance. Canadian officials visited her in prison and made inquiries on her behalf. After five days she was released and put on a plane to Ottawa. Cuban authorities kept the $500 (U.S.) in cash that Ms. Ross was carrying, saying it covered the cost of feeding her for five days, and flying her from Holguin to Havana.
Mr. Doiron noted that while Cuba has the indisputable right to refuse entry to visitors, Canada is entitled to check up on its citizens who are taken into detention and allegedly mistreated.
Once safely back in Ottawa, Ms. Ross said she asked consular officials at the Cuban embassy what happened, and they told her they didn't give her an entry permit because they assumed she had a special permit that allowed her to reside outside the country. Ms. Ross also said she did not check her passport because she was unaware she needed a special visa.
"It was an honest bureaucratic mix-up that could have been resolved," she said.
Ms. Ross says the experience saddened her as she realized how terrorized Cubans are. "They are so scared of the government and are scared to talk to you. One of the guards apologized for treating us harshly, saying he would lose his job if he didn't." She said she is speaking out now because she wants the half million Canadian tourists who visit the Caribbean island every year to be aware of the country's dark underbelly. "Canadian tourists don't see what is going on in Cuba because they're only taken to the resorts. They don't see the reality," she said.
Collaboration: THE REAL CUBA
"They held me for five days while they investigated the case and they didn't let me call a lawyer," Ms. Ross said from her Ottawa home. "It was an undignified way to be treated over essentially a bureaucratic mix-up. When you're in Cuba you have no rights whatsoever."
She also said she was manhandled by her jailors and suffered bruising and scrapes. But worst of all was the psychological trauma. "This is what a police state is like."
The Globe and Mail's calls and e-mails to the Cuban embassy in Ottawa were not returned.
But Reynald Doiron, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs, confirmed that Ms. Ross was held in prison for five days. "We sent a diplomatic note to Cuban authorities requesting they check into the allegation of Ms. Ross being beaten or roughed up and no reply has been received so far," he said.
Ms. Ross's dual citizenship "may be a complicating factor" in receiving a timely response, he said. "However the treatment of a Canadian citizen as reported by her is of concern to Foreign Affairs and deserves a full explanation. We hope they will provide one."
Ms. Ross, a 47-year-old accountant, has never been involved in politics or been critical of Cuba, and left the country 28 years ago when she met and married a Canadian diplomat who was posted in Havana. All Cubans, even those with dual nationality, must enter the country using their Cuban passports, and Ms. Ross had returned twice without incident.
This time, Ms. Ross went to the Cuban embassy in Ottawa and paid $160 to have her passport renewed.
On Feb. 6, 2005, she flew into Holguin in Oriente province with two friends, and was surprised when an immigration official said her Cuban passport didn't have the right entry permit. He said she would have to return immediately to Ottawa.
"He accused me of trying to enter the country illegally. I said no, that there must be a mistake," recalled Ms. Ross. As she argued with the official, the situation devolved into a shouting match at the small airport in Holguin, in the west of Cuba.
That's when two Interior Ministry officials detained her in a room. Her friends had already passed through immigration and were unaware of her predicament.
"The security agents tried to make me agree that I would leave the country. I refused and asked them to fax the Cuban embassy in Ottawa and clear up the problem with the entry permit. Finally, two women came in and started grabbing me."
They detained her for four hours, and then told her they were transporting her to Havana where she would be placed in an immigration detention centre.
On board the plane, Ms. Ross says she bribed a security guard into allowing her to call her family in Havana when she landed.
At the detention centre, she was searched, and her money and belongings locked up. "They didn't let me take a change of clothing or a bar of soap, nothing," she said.
She shared a cell with a Cuban-American who also lacked the proper entry documents, and a Mexican woman engaged to a Cuban. The Mexican woman had been denied entry because officials didn't believe her relationship with her fiancé was genuine.
"The jail was dirty and there was no water. I slept on a metal bed. Written on the walls were the telephone numbers of all the foreign embassies and notes about how much the prisoners had suffered," Ms. Ross said.
After several interviews, Cuban officials finally allowed her to contact the Canadian embassy for consular assistance. Canadian officials visited her in prison and made inquiries on her behalf. After five days she was released and put on a plane to Ottawa. Cuban authorities kept the $500 (U.S.) in cash that Ms. Ross was carrying, saying it covered the cost of feeding her for five days, and flying her from Holguin to Havana.
Mr. Doiron noted that while Cuba has the indisputable right to refuse entry to visitors, Canada is entitled to check up on its citizens who are taken into detention and allegedly mistreated.
Once safely back in Ottawa, Ms. Ross said she asked consular officials at the Cuban embassy what happened, and they told her they didn't give her an entry permit because they assumed she had a special permit that allowed her to reside outside the country. Ms. Ross also said she did not check her passport because she was unaware she needed a special visa.
"It was an honest bureaucratic mix-up that could have been resolved," she said.
Ms. Ross says the experience saddened her as she realized how terrorized Cubans are. "They are so scared of the government and are scared to talk to you. One of the guards apologized for treating us harshly, saying he would lose his job if he didn't." She said she is speaking out now because she wants the half million Canadian tourists who visit the Caribbean island every year to be aware of the country's dark underbelly. "Canadian tourists don't see what is going on in Cuba because they're only taken to the resorts. They don't see the reality," she said.
Collaboration: THE REAL CUBA
8 comments:
un saludo, siempre es un honor visitar su blog, es un deber ineludible mas bien para todos los blogeros luchadores. Un saludo y hay algo para usted en mi blog.
Por todas las cosas que sabemos y por estas no voy a Cuba... Estas totalmente desprotegido a merced de lo que a "ellos" le de la gana!!!!
Niurki
Norberto, gracias por el premio y por lo del honor.
Niurki, está de más decir que tienes razón.
hola, mira, te pego otro caso, reciente, de deportación de Cuba
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y09/mayo09/05_O_1.html
igual, pudieras colgarlo en forma de Evidencia
Por cierto, tengo evidencias de que los consulados cubanos en Canadá, están diciendo a cubanos con PRE que para poder mantenerlo deberán asistir a reuniones organizadas por dichos consulados y les hacen firmar una planilla que contiene una lista de otros "derechos y responsabilidades" de aquellos con PRE
he pedido permiso a la dueña de los emails, para poder publicarlos, a ver si dice que sí.
saludos
pues me dieron permiso, para poner los emails, que recibió una amiga mía, se lo enviaron dos canadienses esposas de cubanos, perdona que lo pegue aquí, pero no veo tu email, mira, es como un expediente X, esto es otra cosa, lo que le exigen a los cubanos que tienen PRE, para que lo mantengan, es algo oculto, que no sabe ni dios, pero a mí siempre me llamó la atención, esas asociaciones de cubanos, de dónde los sacaban? sobre todo en Europa, que ahora habrá una encuentro de esas asociaciones, en fin, los email recibidos:
7 de Mayo:
"My husband, who has been in Canada for over 2 years now, went to the Toronto Cuban consulate this morning... The counter staff told my husband that ...he had to attend events and meetings organized by the Consulate, and failure to do so might again result in the loss of the PRE. They gave him some form which contains a list of other "rights and responsbilities" of the PRE holder, which they made him sign to acknowledge that he understood."
traducción rápida:
"Mi marido, que lleva más de dos años en Canadá, fue esta mañana al consulado cubano en Toronto... los funcionarios cubanos le dijeron que tenía que asistir a los eventos y reuniones organizados por el consulado, y que si no lo hacía podía perder el PRE. Le dieron una planilla que contiene una lista de otros "derechos y responsabilidades" de aquellos con PRE, que le hicieron firmar para asegurarse que lo entendía."
9 de Mayo:
"My husband went this week to the Consulate, and was been told that he should attend meeting in order to mantain the PRE."
"Mi marido fue esta mañana al consulado y le dijeron que debía asistir a las reuniones para mantener el PRE".
Un chantaje en regla
saludos
Muchísimas gracias Ania. Te agradecería que me pasaras los emails. Encantada de colgarlos. Mi correo es macne_vero@yahoo.com.
Hola soy cubana canadiense, hace 18 years que sali de Cuba y no pienso regresar hasta que se acaben estas arbitrariedades, es hora que se sepa que Cuba no es un paraiso.
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