Addressing the National Assembly (parliament) last Wednesday, Fidel Castro threatened the US government to cancel the bilateral migratory pact and close the US interests section in Havana. The migratory agreement was signed in September 1994 and May 1995 to curb a mass exodus by turning it into a controlled, orderly emigration flow to the United States of 20,000 Cubans a year. According to the previous practice, hundreds of thousands of Cubans would send their applications to a lottery visa program, whose computers would then select the lucky 20,000 a year who eventually — provided they pass an interview with the US immigration officials — would travel to the United States.
The latest mass exodus from the Island took place in 1994 after street riots in Havana, when Cubans were allowed to take to the sea in unseaworthy craft. 30,000 Cubans were then intercepted by US coastguards and taken to the Guantanamo naval base and later to the American mainland. The US government has declared through its chief diplomat in Havana, Vicki Huddleston, that they have always stood for an orderly, safe emigration and never for a mass exodus, which causes the loss of many lives.
Some people who are flocking now to the Havana waterfront were probably among those who, two weeks ago, signed a petition to make Cuban socialism “unchangeable.” Now they want their relatives to come by boat to take them from Cuba to the United States, as it happened in 1980 when over 120,000 Cubans left the country in the famous Mariel boatlift.