The US consulate has been closed since 2017 following alleged “sonic attacks”. (file photo)
Havana:
The United States consulate, closed since 2017 following alleged “sonic attacks” against diplomatic staff, will resume a limited service issuing visas, its embassy in Havana said on Thursday.
Washington downgraded the US mission at least five years ago when then-President Donald Trump accused Havana of carrying out “sonic attacks” targeting embassy staff.
American personnel and their families later suffered from mysterious illnesses known as “Havana Syndrome”. Similar incidents later occurred in other embassies around the world.
A US government report in 2020 stated that diseases are caused by “directed, pulsed radio frequency (RF) energy”.
Timothy Zuniga-Brown, in charge of the US diplomatic mission in Havana, said the consulate “will begin limited resumption of certain immigrant visa services as part of a gradual expansion of the embassy’s operations.”
The closure of the consulate was a major blow to Cubans who wanted to immigrate to the US as it forced them to deal with a number of obstacles, one of them being to travel to Colombia or Guyana to submit a request. went.
“There are a lot of people who want to take a boat there (in the US) or to go to a third country,” said Felipe Mesa, 75, a Cuban pensioner.
Zuniga-Brown said the consulate would only schedule appointments with those who have already submitted complete document files. During the transition period, most requests will still have to be made in Guyana’s capital, Georgetown.
He said the consular service would also provide essential services and emergency nonimmigrant visas to US citizens.
– No warmth of relationships –
According to existing immigration agreements, the US must authorize 20,000 immigrant visas a year to Cubans.
With Cuba facing its worst economic crisis in 30 years due to the coronavirus pandemic, most Cubans hoping to immigrate to the US have chosen to do so via the dangerous Central American route where migrants are exploited by people smugglers. have to face.
“Visa services for migrants are a safe and legal way towards family reunification,” Zuniga-Brown said, referring to families divided between the two countries.
Political scientist Rafael Hernández says that the US’s failure to honor the migration agreement led to “a kind of silent marial”, a reference to the mass exodus of about 125,000 Cubans in the US in 1980.
He said the number of undocumented Cubans in the US increased from 21,000 in 2019 to 40,000 a year later.
The shortage of US diplomatic staff in Cuba reflects rising tensions between the two countries after Trump succeeded Barack Obama at the White House.
Trump ended improving relations that saw Obama approve the resumption of bilateral diplomatic ties in 2015.
Many Cubans hoped that electing Joe Biden – Obama’s former vice president – would improve things, but in vain.
“This move in no way represents a continuation of Obama policy, but rather a rollback of the atrocities committed by Trump,” Hernandez said.
Michael Schifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, agreed.
“It would be a mistake to interpret this as the start of an important opening towards the island,” he said.
With the midterm US elections due in November, “it is difficult to imagine that there will be other changes” to current Washington policy toward Cuba, Schifter said.
The United States has regularly criticized Cuban Communist Party leaders over the arrests and convictions of anti-government protesters who took to the streets in unprecedented demonstrations last July.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)