Dissident Says Cuba Pushing Him to Emigrate

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Caracas, Saturday March 7, 2009

 

Dissident Says Cuba Pushing Him to Emigrate

 

HAVANA – Cuban dissident Hector Palacios on Wednesday said the government has refused to grant him permission to travel to Spain, where he had received medical treatment until last year, unless he agrees in writing not to return to the communist-ruled island.

 

Palacios, one of 75 regime opponents jailed in the “Black Spring” crackdown of 2003, told a press conference that on Feb. 28 a State Security official told him that the government could issue a visa to him and his wife, fellow dissident Gisela Delgado, but on condition they “not return to the country.”

 

“They told us that if we didn’t sign a statement promising not to return we wouldn’t be able to leave the country,” added Palacios, sentenced in 2003 to 25 years in prison but paroled on health grounds in December 2006.

 

Palacios left Cuba in October 2007 to undergo medical treatment in Spain, after Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero intervened on his behalf, and he returned to the island in September 2008.

 

Of the nine paroled prisoners from the “Group of 75” that have left Cuba, Palacios is the only one who has returned.

 

Palacios said last November he applied for the exit visa required by Cubans wishing to travel abroad so he could return to Madrid for a scheduled medical checkup.

 

“They’re trying to expel us from the country,” the dissident said, adding that the official told him that there are “enough doctors” in Cuba to treat his illnesses.

 

Palacios, however, argues that the Cuban health system cannot attend to him because the medicine he has been prescribed is not readily available on the island and that only a military hospital would be able to provide him with adequate treatment.

 

He added, however, that he would not willingly go to a military hospital and vowed to refuse any medical treatment if he is re-arrested.

 

During the press conference, Palacios showed a medical report prepared by the Spanish hospital where he was diagnosed with “chronic venous insufficiency,” “syncopes of presumed cardiogenic origin” and “chronic bronchopathy,” among other illnesses. EFE

 

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